Spring Break '11

Okay, so I wasn't on spring break. But a post about Fort Lauderdale Beach felt like it warranted a spring break reference. Plus, this trip took place over the last weekend before summer, so I say it's applicable.

Recently, I spent a long weekend in SoFla and it was as refreshing as a day at the beach. Cory and I were in town for his ten year high school reunion, and I decided to fly down early to spend some time with the fam. My Mom and her clan drove down from their home an hour and a half away, since we hadn't seen each other in a while. At different points, we had myself and Cory, my mother, stepfather and sister, my Grammy and step-grandparents, my aunt and three cousins. It was a very crowded but very happy holiday in the sun.

We stayed at the Grand Pelican, a pretty hotel that reminded me of the Grand Floridian at Disney World. Of course, its real highlight was the lazy river, which was much enjoyed by both my 10-year-old sister and Cory.


One of the best things about the hotel was that its right on the beach. Most of the hotels in that area are across the street from the water and you have to walk across to get to the sand. We took full advantage of being on the water: we had our meals on the hotel's patio overlooking the beach and kept our room doors open at night to hear the waves.

And now, for no real reason, I'm posting a pic of my mother at the pool. Her face hasn't graced this blog yet and it's possible she'll make me take it down, but for now here she is:

Doesn't she look young?

Our weekend ended with the reunion, and we got together with a bunch of friends from high school beforehand (Yes, Cory and I went to the same high school, though we didn't graduate the same year. Go Paladins!). Here's some pre-party shots of the class of '01. See how I brought it full circle? And no, the blue thing wasn't planned.


Psst, my friend Elan (who's in the pic above and has been mentioned in posts like this) and his wife Melissa became parents today! Mazel tov you guys!!!

Tony Time

Note: The soundtrack for this post is the song On Broadway. If you prefer The Drifters' version, click here. If you're partial to George Benson's version, click here. Are we all hearing it now? Excellent. Please proceed.

Did everyone watch the Tony's this weekend? Or were we all too busy watching the very sad Miami/Dallas game? I dabbled in both, as I'm loyal to the theater world and South Florida. I always love the Tony's, but I was extra excited for them this year. I've spent a bit of time in NYC this past year (more on that later) and I was fortunate enough to see a number of the shows nominated for the Big Award. As such, I've compiled a list here of some of the Broadway happenings I'm loving right now:

1.) First and foremost, this behemoth of a show...How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. There's much to recommend it. Peabody Award, Best Revival, Matthew Broderick, blah blah blah blah. Bottom line, Daniel Radcliffe is in it. Now, this is a travel blog, so there hasn't been much Harry Potter reporting (except for here and here and here and here). So some readers may not know about my mild obsession with all things HP. But it's exactly that, an obsession. I'm a nerd. Lauren and I were lucky enough to see D Rad in Equus for his 2007 London performance. That was fantastic, but this took the cake. Radcliffe's dancing made me giddy, and co-star John Larroquette was a hilarious surprise. And, of course, the former Night Court actor won best supporting actor in a musical Sunday night.

In closing, let me reiterate my joy for this show with the following video, taken immediately after seeing the musical:


2). The Book of Mormon, which I briefly touched upon here. This is probably the best theater experience I've had in a good long while. (Hard to believe after seeing the video above, right?) The music is fantastic and it manages to be hilarious and touching at the same time. I'd go on and on about it, but I really don't have to. The thing won nine Tony's Sunday night and has been such a critical success this year it prompted Chris Rock to say, upon presenting the award for best musical of the year: "I don't really need to read the nominees, right? We already know the best musical, right?"

I hear the show will start a national tour in December 2012 and seriously, if it comes near you, see it.

3). The Mother*#@%er With the Hat, known on censored television Sunday Night as The Mother With the Hat. A much less-cool name. This play has a lot of start power, with Chris Rock, Annabella Sciorra of Law & Order fame, and Bobby Cannavale, who Will and Grace friends will remember as the guy Will ends up with in the last season. We decided to see this play randomly a few months ago, when we were in the city with Elan. Elan had never seen a Broadway play before and has a tendency to be picky about the theater he does see, so we wanted to go to something we thought he'd like. The foul language seemed like a good choice to us. And it was. Cannavale was nominated for best actor in a play and I thought he would win, but alas I was wrong. He did take home the Drama Desk award, though, so good on him.

Honorable mentions go out to Sister Act and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Both were nominated for several awards each and both are really fun, but Priscilla is fantastic. It won best costume, which it deserves. That show has some insane drag queen outfits going on. Here's a peek:

In closing, I'd like to leave you with this video of Tony host Neil Patrick Harris. How much do we all love NPH? He's adorable and he did an awesome closing rap at the end of the show. But his opening number was the scene stealer. As Neil teaches us here, the theater is not just for gays anymore. Please enjoy!

A Horselength

Wanted to post a quick update on Erica from America, my horse counterpart (you can read all about her here). She ran today and came in fourth! Now, this is certainly not a win, but definitely an improvement over her last performance when she came in next to last. (Read that post here.) Almost placing is a lot more exciting than almost losing. Plus, she "only missed second by a horselength." Whatever that means. I hear it's a good thing.

You can read more about today's race here (she's listed under Race 5), or check out her fan page here. Yes, Erica from America the Horse has an online fan page. From the looks of it, she doesn't have any actual fans yet, but the potential is there.

Also, you may notice I'm using the pronoun she. We do have confirmation now that the horse is a lady, not a tramp. So maybe there will be no more gender confusion from here on out. Maybe.

PS: Anyone notice the blog makeover? The old lady was looking tired, so some things got freshened up around here. Hope you like it!

Sal Tlay Ka Siti (sound it out)

Can anyone guess what I'm holding in the photo above? For those who can't make it out from the blurry pic, it's Salt Lake City's own Polygamy Porter. I really enjoy inappropriate merchandise, and this fit the bill. During our Sundance trip this year (posted about here) we made a quick stop to Salt Lake City's local Wal-Mart before heading off to Park City. It's been years since I've lived near a Wal-Mart and I always try to finagle a trip to the budget superstore whenever I'm in the vicinity of one. That's when I found this gem of a six pack. Unfortunately, we didn't purchase it, so I can't tell you how Polygamy Porter tastes. But I bet it's full of Mormon-y goodness.

The Wal-Mart trip was made possible as we rented a van this time around, something I was nervous about since we'd be driving on snowy mountains. However, Elan hails from Canada and he assured us he could handle the wheel. This was more or less true (we did come out of it alive) but there were some hairy moments. Sorry Elan! What I meant was, Elan never once made me think I was going to careen off an icy cliff to my death.

Elan had an ulterior motive to the van renting, I believe, as he has a slightly unhealthy obsession with Yelp. As such, he arrived in the great City of Salt Lake with a wish list of restaurants to visit. This is a common occurrence when traveling with Elan, and sometimes it works out nicely. Case in point: Red Iguana. Red Iguana was featured on the Food Network show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." The "dives" part of the title certainly fit the Iguana. Here's what it looks like from the outside:

However, the food was delicious! (Read more about it here.) The place specializes in mole, and we tried a bunch of them. Pumpkin mole, chocolate mole, kitchen sink mole...you get the idea. So, thank you Elan, for being an intense Yelp stalker.

Since this has been an Elan-centric post, here's a video to cap it off. When we went snow tubing in 2010, we took a video of Elan screaming like a maniac all the way down the hill. Unfortunately, the video didn't come out. This year, I attempted to take the video again and, true to form, accidentally hit the off button once the actual tubing started. However, check out Elan's face here as he readies himself to fight that hill once again. He looks uber serious...

Shall We Sundance?

Sundance takes place every year in Utah. If you already knew this, you're smarter than me. Before I'd ever been to the annual movie fest, I assumed it took place in some magical, North Pole town. Sundance, Antarctica, maybe. That's a slight exaggeration, but I really did have no idea where the thing was stationed.

Imagine my surprise two years ago when I learned I'd be going to Park City, Utah. Cory is a big film buff and attending the festival is a yearly tradition for him, sort of like Mecca, and I got swept into the yearly pilgrimage. I've been twice now, and I'm pleased to say I love it.

This past festival, we stayed a week with our friends Elan and Melissa, and Cory's sister Lindsey and her friend Stephanie. The photos for this post were fun to go through, as Melissa was about four months pregnant on the trip and not showing at all. Now, she'll be a mama any day, and her outline looks a lot different! (She still looks beautiful though!)

We saw many a movie and several celebrities, but my favorite part about the trip was the beautiful scenery. I had no idea Utah would be so pretty, but it was. We stayed in the picturesque Westgate ski resort, and the whole place looked like a snow globe:


I skied for the first time in Park City, and I was equal parts bad at it and amazed by it. Skiing was a lot of fun for me, surprising as I've never been much of an athlete. Or a fan of cold. One of my favorite things about skiing was riding the gondola up to the top of the mountain. It's so quiet and the only thing around you is tall, white mountains. I loved it. Cory said this was not the typical highlight of a ski trip, but I was unconvinced.


We also went snow tubing, a more laid back snow sport. That is, of course, until the boys decided to turn it into a snowball battle. Not a fight, a battle. There were many casualties, including Cory's pants.





After all that movie-watching and snow diving, we did plenty of nighttime eating and drinking...and TV watching in pajamas. Please don't mind the random pics of us with girls dressed in Stella Artois snowsuits. The pub was giving out free drinks if you took a photo with their girls, and we were happy to oblige.





You can't tell, but in the pajama pic I'm wearing a Banksy T-shirt. Cory is obsessed with the famous street artist, and Banksy's documentary debuted at Sundance in 2010. This made Cory very happy. As you may know, Banksy is a recluse artist and no one knows his true identity. When we were there, Banksy had tagged a few walls around Park City with his art, like a great big "Bansky wuz here" sign. This past Sundance, Elan made a joke of it by giving Cory a Banksy T-shirt. The joke was on Elan, as it's now one of my favorite pj tops.

Here's a photo of Melissa with one of the Bansky walls in Park City. We were happy to see the art was still there a year later.


To cap off, let me reiterate, Utah is cold. Case in point, here's a photo of Cory and I walking down Park City's Main Street. This wasn't one of the snowiest days, but I think it proves my point.

And now, some gratuitous photos of my friends with various celebrities at Sundance. Ten points if you can guess which "The Office" actor Melissa is with below, and who that actress is that Cory is stalking in the last...

Bahama Mama

If you can't guess from the title, the above photo, or my last post (read here), I was on a cruise in the Bahamas this past weekend. I really like cruising, maybe it's the 70 year old in me. Or perhaps just the Floridian. Either way, I had a ton-o-fun. Cory and I were joining four Florida friends for the weekend and good times were had by all.

We boarded on Friday and Cory and I checked out our room (after downing a frozen rum drink first, of course). It was a cozy fit, but clean and comfortable. Cory's only experience cruising has been on Celebrity and they're known for larger cabins, so he was a bit surprised by the smaller cabins of Royal Caribbean. Still, everything fit and we had all the space we really needed.

On Saturday we hung around the pool for a while before disembarking for Nassau. With no real plans, we ended up pulled by throngs of people and music to Senor Frogs. Things got silly there.




Cory and our friend Dan decided it would be a good idea to jump over the bar's railing and into the water below. I think it was the buckets of beer.


The rest of us left the bar and walked to the Hilton next door, where we found the boys swimming to shore on the hotel's beach. It was a nice spot, so we all stayed and swam for a while.



Back on the boat, there was plenty of eating and drinking, followed by more eating and drinking. I didn't get any photos, but we did return to the cabin that evening to find this flying ninja monkey hanging from the ceiling:

The next day was private island day, and we boarded a very slow moving ferry to get to Coco Cay. We spent a few hours on the beach, me reading in a chair, Wittney and Dan playing in a volleyball tournament, and Cory almost drowning trying to swim out to a barge in the middle of the ocean. Usual beach stuff. We still have no idea how Cory scraped his head during his swim.



When we got back on the boat we went up to the boat's 360 degree bar, called the Viking Lounge, to watch the sunset. It was a bit cloudy so it wasn't the most magnificent view, but we did have some fun drinks. Though, I must say my dirty martini was a lot more masculine than Cory's mudslide or Phil's strawberry daiquiri.



We got our last photo during dinner. After that, there was a lot more toasting of drinks and a lot less taking of photos. We did spend some hours in the casino, even though I kept insisting Cory stop playing. He ended up doing pretty well at roulette, but we won't tell him I said that.

All in all, it was a fun cruise, though I'm not sure Royal Caribbean is my favorite cruiseline. But for a quick Memorial Day trip, the spring break-like vibe was just what we were looking for. How about you all, what sort of cruise style do you prefer?