Catching up

Fact: Amanda does a great job of blogging and I love her very much.

Fact: Amanda likes to take her time between posts and needs a healthy dose of encouragement to participate which can put this blog behind schedule.

Fact: I am going to be in big trouble once she reads the above statement (I hope a trip to Dairy Dee will smooth things out).

After a little bit of a hiatus, the O'Malley's American Adventure continues. I've got some catching up to do since we are a week behind. No time to waste, back to the adventure.

Since my last post, things have gone back on the upswing. Work is going really well, no more crazy drivers have tried to crash into me, and we are having a lot of fun. Two weekends ago we made a sort of impromptu trip to Nashville, TN. When we first started looking for places to visit it wasn't on our list, but everyone at work encouraged us to go there. It did not disappoint. After about a 4 hour drive, we arrived at the hotel and quickly set out to explore. We went to the Opryland Hotel, which is unbelievable. It is built like an enclosed football stadium and has a giant rain forest inside. I'm talking trees, rock formations, waterfalls, rivers, you name it. It was impressive. We walked around in there for well over an hour just looking around.



Apparently this is how they build hotels in Nashville

After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we left the hotel and headed downtown. Little did we know Broadway and the adjacent streets are one giant party. Every day of the week from 10am until 2am there are at least 10 live bands playing at any given time. Again, that's EVERY DAY, not just weekends. We went from place to place soaking it all in. Now we aren't country music fans by any stretch of the imagination, but it is easy to get into it in an environment such as this. We spent all night there and really had a blast.

The next day we went back downtown to visit the Ryman Auditorium, which housed the Grand Ole Opry for 31 years (the show has since moved to a new high tech theatre). However, the Ryman still remains home to concerts and shows of all genres from comedy, to rock, classical, and of course, country.

Even we sound good at the Ryman

We took the backstage tour and gathered a lot of history, not only about the theatre, but of Nashville in general. I would recommend that tour to anyone going to Nashville, it was that good. A fun fact we learned is that the Ryman Auditorium has the second best acoustics of any venue, anywhere in the world. To see how good it sounds, check out this performance:

Nashville was a bit of a whirlwind, but we got a good taste of the south and all it has to offer (including more BBQ, which Amanda is growing to love). We couldn't find any moonshine though. Maybe next time.

Not to be outdone, this Memorial Day weekend was even more hectic. First, we drove to St. Louis to watch our Phillies beat up on the Cardinals Friday night. It was a great game, especially because of the outcome. I will say that Cardinals fans are very hospitable, as we had a good group sitting around us. That being said, it still feels really good to go into a stadium as a fan of the visitor and walk out a winner. That alone would have made my weekend.

But we soldiered on from St. Louis to Norman, Oklahoma on Saturday. It only took a paltry 7 hours. No big deal! The reason we went to OK was to visit our good friends Ben and Julie for Julie's birthday. We know them from living in Philly, but both of them are originally from OK. Julie is also pregnant with their first child, so we wanted to see how that all was going. They were nice enough to invite us down, and since we like a good adventure, how could we resist?

Happy Birthday Julie!

It was so good to see them. It's really nice seeing familiar faces because honestly, I feel like we are living a fake lifestyle right now. I mean, look at what we do. We are working our way around the country, meeting fantastic people, learning new things all the time, and going on mini-vacations just about every weekend. Seriously, how absurd is that?

Another reason we had a great time is that Ben and Julie's family knows how to throw a party. There were games, swimming, music, food, drinks, and Big Truck Tacos. Big Truck Tacos is no joke. It was voted the number one food truck in all of America. They literally drove up to the party, opened their truck, and allowed us all to eat our faces off. It was glorious.

The following morning, we packed up our stuff and headed back to white squirrel country. It was a quick turn around, but we wanted to have Monday to relax since we've been going, going, going. 10 hours later we arrived in Olney completely exhausted.

After a good night's sleep, our relaxing Monday quickly turned into another day of action. First, we decided to start our new workout program, Insanity. You may have seen the commercials, well let me tell you, it is equal parts awfulness and amazingness. Just doing the fitness test made us both sore and achy. It's a two month program and apparently each day is worse that the next. What the heck are we thinking?

Eventually we picked ourselves up off the floor and met up with one of the people we work with and her husband. They invited us out to go four-wheeling to a local winery. It was pure hillbilly elegance. Riding ATVs to a classy winery. Unfortunately the winery was closed, so we then proceeded to just take the ATVs through the woods and back roads. The scenery was excellent. And who wants a four-wheeler now...THIS GUY! While it wasn't exactly the relaxing afternoon we planned for, we had a great time nonetheless.

So there you have it. It took a little while, but we are now back up to speed with all of our adventures.

The task for this week is figuring out where our next travel job will be. We are supposed to start setting up interviews in the upcoming days and make a decision as to where we want to go next. We initially asked our recruiter for Montana, but it's not looking promising. I think we'll have some other good options though. Whatever happens, happens. I mean Illinois wasn't on our radar to start and I think it's worked out pretty well so far. Who knows where this crazy life will take us next? But when we know, you'll know (unless Amanda wants to post that information, then it might take a while).

So Much to See and Do

I would like to preface this blog with a few positive statements since the last post was slightly depressing:

1.  The ability to watch The Avenger's on opening weekend and spend only $10.00 for 2 tickets on a Friday night...amazing.

2.  Charlie "won" in the case of his car accident as fault was placed on the woman driving the other vehicle!

3.  Our Ford Escape now looks beautiful (post body work) and has 1,600 less miles on it.  That's right, in 10 days we put 1,600 miles on a rental car.  Thank goodness there wasn't a mileage limit.

Moving on...
We've continued to keep busy and it seems like there are more and more things we want to add to our "to do" list.  Luckily the weather has been beautiful, lending to ease of travel and sightseeing.  We spent May 12-13 in St. Louis, Missouri and this past weekend in Nashville, Tennessee.  St. Louis seems like ages ago, but I'll do my best to re-cap.

City Museum in St. Louis, MO

We arrived Saturday afternoon and decided to start with the most recommended spot, City Museum.  This is a place like no other and is really indescribable.  It is a playground for both children and adults housed in a 600,000 square foot former shoe factory.  They have transformed the space into an architectural gem using old objects found around the city, i.e. abandoned bridges, school buses, rebar, construction cranes, etc.  We were climbing, swinging, sliding and entertained by circus acrobats in training.  We had so much fun here and left exhausted and sweaty.  Here are some pictures & a video:

On the roof

In a cave

So we continued on foot (walkin', walkin') to a more well known tourist attraction, Gateway Arch.  This is another impressive piece of architecture.  Charlie kept saying that it didn't look real and I have to agree with him.  It looked to be digitally placed on the lawn, like something you would see in Star Trek on a planet in a far away galaxy.  The picture below is a good example (nice photography by Charlie).

Unfortunately we didn't get to ride to the top of the Arch because it was sold out!  No one we spoke to had ever run into it being sold out, but it was.  Oh well.  They had a nice museum about westward expansion that we spent some time exploring before heading back to our hotel to clean-up and prepare for phase 2 of the day, dinner!  We took the MetroLink to The Loop, which is a hot spot for dining, entertainment, and shopping.  We ate at the nationally renowned restaurant and music venue, Blueberry Hill.  It was delicious.

The challenge of the weekend was determining what to do on Sunday.  There were so many possibilities and so little time...we ended up at the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, which originated in St. Louis (where Anheuser met Busch).  This place is massive -- 199 acres of efficiency.  The grounds are beautiful (weird to say when I'm talking about a brewery, but it is true!) and the large, old brick buildings are filled with ornate character inside.  They have free tours that last about an hour and take you from Clydesdale stables to the bottling factory. 

Here is a fun fact from the tour as we entered a 55 degree room with aging beer: 

As the beer is going through its beechwood aging process it sits in giant containers for 31 days.  These containers are so large that it would require 1 human to drink 1 case of beer every day of his life for 127 years to drain this container.  The St. Louis brewery houses 66 of these containers.  Wow...

The only disappointment about our trip to St. Louis was that we didn't pass a "Welcome to Missouri" sign to add to our photo album.  Could be worse. 



All smiles.  Enjoying 2 free drinks after our free tour :)

It's Not All Sunshine and Happiness

It's been a little while since the last post, and I hate to be a downer, but to give you the true story of our adventure a little dose of reality isn't such a bad thing. So after all the great things we've been saying, and with how well our transition to the Midwest has been, we were bound to hit a speed bump eventually. Over the past week or so, that's exactly what has happened. Nothing serious, nothing that makes us want to run back home, but just enough to be annoying.

It all started with everyone's favorite fungus, ringworm. Somehow I developed two very attractive spots of ringworm on my low back. Again, it's nothing compared to tearing your ACL 2 months before your wedding like someone I know, but it's still just enough to get you irritated. But thanks to CVS and their overpriced antifugal cream it's all under control...I hope.

The next unfortunate occurrence was a little more of an issue. Last week I was involved in a car accident. Fortunately no one was hurt, but unfortunately bad drivers live in Olney. Long story short, I am coming up to a traffic light where a woman is in the middle of two lanes with no turn signal on. I pull up on her right as I prepare to make a right turn. The light turns green and she decides to turn right at the same time I do. Since two cars can't fit into one lane, her passenger side crashed into my driver side. Her only defense was that she claimed she never saw me. In case you haven't noticed, I drive a large SUV with a boat sized cargo box on top...HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THAT?!?!? Well apparently in Olney, IL that's a good enough defense for the police because the officer refused to assign fault at the scene and now we are forced to pay the deductible for the repairs. Incredibly lame. Our insurance company says the accident is "pending investigation" so hopefully we'll get our money back, but I'm not holding my breath.

Be careful, Olney drivers don't look when turning

Good as new, thank you Wood's Autobody

All things considered it could have been much worse, but it has been a huge inconvenience. Besides the monetary costs, I was on the phone non-stop for 2 days trying to get everything sorted out. We had to drive about an hour in our busted up car (into another time zone mind you) to get a rental vehicle. The only good thing about the rental car is that in it I've driven to and from the Indianapolis airport and Chicago (which was a great time, thanks Pat), as well as doing home visits for work. In a week I've put over 1200 miles on it, and we are taking it to St. Louis this weekend. So at least those are miles that aren't going on our car. However, I've been sweating bullets every time it storms because we'll have to pay for hail damage to the rental if it occurs. Of course, last weekend it was storming like crazy.

Here comes a storm, run for cover!

Heavy rain, high winds, and the aforementioned hail do occur here during particularly bad storms. With the land being so flat and open, you can see the storms coming from miles away, the lightning and thunder carry unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and the intensity of East Coast storms pales in comparison to these. I love watching a good storm, but the ones here can be intimidating. I can't begin to imagine what it is like in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas, etc.

The final insult to this week was the Richland Memorial Hospital Volleyball Tournament. Now a normal person would see this type of tournament as a chance to have fun with co-workers. Unfortunately I'm not normal, clearly. No matter how hard I try, my competitive side always wins out. We made it to the semi-finals on Wednesday night where we lost to a team with questionable tactics. They didn't rotate players, the one doctor on their team yelled and talked trash the ENTIRE game (he would put Katie Matonis' trash talking antics to shame), and they used players who weren't even hospital employees. Ridiculous. Well, we lost, the Flyers also lost their last playoff game that night too, so I was angry. Obviously I'm still not over it yet, as evidenced by my need to blog about it.

So there you go. Nothing life altering, but all those instances back-to-back combined for a pretty annoying week. I'm confident things will turn around as we have an awesome weekend planned in St. Louis. We'll be celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary (how did that happen?) and have lots of good stuff planned.

To close this long post, I just want to wish a happy Mother's Day to all moms who read this blog, especially Mom O'Malley and Mom Funk. We wish we could be there with you, we miss you, but we send our love from the Midwest. Thank you for all that you do for us and always supporting us.