Laramie, WY

My child-hood best friend, Morgan, got married in Laramie, Wyoming, last week.  And even though we haven't been the best at staying in touch lately - only talking a couple of times a year - there was still no way I was missing her big day!

I still remember the first day I met her.  There weren't many girls in our neighborhood.  It was pretty  much always me and boys.  But one summer day Morgan and her little brother, Dylan, come down to join the neighborhood games (of flag football, I think).  I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but I was a pretty big tom-boy, and she wasn't, haha.  Our friendship took off though, and we remained BFF's right up until the day she moved away to Michigan.  I went to visit her once there, and again when she moved to Laramie (my first time in an airplane)!  We have a long history together!

So, like I said, I wasn't missing her big day.  Without much vacation time at my current job, my mom and I decided to make a quick road trip up to Laramie for the weekend...which included bringing her dog, Deuce, along for the ride.  We left early Saturday morning and drove non-stop to Laramie.  It really wasn't a bad drive...8 or 9 hours. 

I lucked out and booked a really nice hotel for next to nothing (the day before we left) on priceline or one of those websites.  We weren't sur what we were going to get, but it was great.  The guy checking us in at the front desk said the rate we got was even cheaper than what he could get as an employee!  Score! (The only downfall was they didn't allow pets, so we had to sneak Deuce in through a back door!)

We made it to Laramie in time to check-in at our hotel, shower, and head to the wedding.  Morgan was brave and planned an outdoor wedding...and it rained that afternoon.  They were moving everything to the inside back-up location, when the sun decided to pop up just shortly before the ceremony.  It turned out to be just perfect - a nice cool evening!  The wedding was set up on the lawn next to the University of Wyoming Student Union (her dad was the track coach there).

After the wedding, Morgan and Bobby lined up to greet everyone.  Below is the pic of the first time I got to hug the new bride...first time in a couple of years, actually!  She's such a sweet girl...I just love her!

Before we went in to the reception, we had to go let the dog out of the car (yes, we kept her in the car instead of the hotel room).  She needed a potty break, so we walked across the street and let her run around in a field.  

Once poor Deuce was stuck back in the car, my mom and I went in to the reception at the Student Union.  It was decorated all cute (of course) and was a great setting for the a wedding reception.  All the tables had pitchers of tea and water, and buckets full of soda.  Such a cute idea!

Morgan and Bobby did all the typical wedding recpetion stuff:  grand entrance, speeches, first dance, cutting the cake, etc...  I did get a little one-on-one time with Morgan before we left for the night.  She was one busy bride!

It was short trip to Laramie.  We left early the next morning for the long drive back to Great Bend...and then MY even longer trip back to KC!  Totally worth the 20 hours in the car in two days to see my best friend get married!  

(Driving through the mountains in Wyoming)

Day 10 - San Jose-Houston-HOME

I'M HOME!! 


Unfortunately, I can NOT say the trip home went smoothly!  Martin and I woke up a little late, or taxi driver was a little late, we didn't have enough cash to pay him when we got there, and...long story short...WE MISSED OUR FLIGHT!!  Here are a couple of pictures I took while standing outside of the airport waiting on Martin to go get cash to pay our driver - not realizing we were missing our flight!

Yea, I feel like I'm a pretty experienced international traveler by now, and THIS was certainly NOT supposed to happen!  We were there more than an hour early, but apparently it is near impossible to get through security if you are trying to get back IN to the United States from Costa Rica!  After begging and pleading with management, we were told there absolutely was NOTHING they could do to get us on that plane.  I booked another flight for 5 hours later, made it through all the security lines where they checked and re-checked every single thing I had, and stood in the terminal as I watched my plane take off -- THE ONE I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ON!  Ugghh...


I had plenty of time to chill in the airport, so after buying a prepaid phone card and calling home to let everyone know about my small disaster, I bought a couple books and found a corner to sit on the floor and read.  Skinny Bitch is one good book - haha!  :)


After several L O N G hours in the airport, I finally got on my flight, short and easy in to Houston, grabbed some dinner at Chiles (a good 'ole cheesebruger and fries never tasted so good!), almost missed my next flight (seriously ) and finally landed in KC tonight! 

Here is the sunset leaving Houston...

IT IS SOOOO GOOD TO BE HOME!  :)

Day 9 - Jaco Beach, Costa Rica

I´m sure you are all sick of hearing this (or maybe just sick of hearing from me in general) but today was another ridiculously awesome day... :)


It was just an absolutely beautiful morning in Montezuma.  I was said to have to leave so soon, but I hopped on a speed boat at 9:30 am on the beach in Montezuma, heading for Jaco.  That is across the peninsula of Costa Rica, so we had to cross part of the Pacific ocean.  It was me, a dentist from Florida, and his two girlfriends...haha.  They wrapped all of our bags (luggage) in big trash bags because we were on a pretty little speed boat and we were going quite a ways, pretty fast, so they said there was a good chance we would get wet!  There aren´t any docks here in Costa Rica, not that I´ve found anyways, so they pull the boats in as far as they can and then you just walk out through the water to hop on.  No problem for me, the rich old dentist and his two old ladies were NOT happy about it! ;) 

So we took off, FAST, and I was kind of loving it, just being out on the ocean, but it got real old real fast when we got farther out in to the wide open ocean, and the waves got bigger, and the boat kept going faster!  I literally think we were flying over the ocean, and after laughing for a little while, I eventually began hanging on for dear life, bouncing all around! Well after about 30 minutes of fighting the high seas ;) the driver abruptly slowed down, and I was like THANK YOU it´s about time he realized he´s going to fast!  But he slowed down because there were DOLPHINS swimming around us and he didn´t want to hit them!!  I mean how much better could my vacation get right!?  I was like a kid in a candy store just squealing with excitement...I didn´t even know I liked dolphins so much!  It was the coolest thing ever to see them swimming around our boat and jumping through the waves!  I was just giggling and screaming and snapping pictures, you know how excited I can get!  The driver was having a good laugh at me...  So when the dolphins stopped jumping, I hunched down and was visibly distraught. ;)  Well the super cool driver said ¨aaahhh...you want more dolphin??¨ About all the english he knew, and of course I grinned and said yes, so he turned the boat around and went back to find them!  Once he saw one or two leap out of the water, he drove around really fast in big circles, to create a big wake or waves, and then you should have seen the dolphins!!  Apparently they love to play in the waves that boats create, so lots of them were swimming RIGHT beside the boat and then leaping through the waves we created!  It was seriously awesome.  I don´t know if Ive ever even seen a dolphin in a park or anything, so seeing them jumping in the wild was SWEET! :)  The driver finally said, good??  And I let him drive on...haha. ;)  It was hard to watch AND take pictures at the same time, so they didn't turn out so hot, but here they are...

So it was about an hour to Jaco beach...no dock again, just sludging through the water with my backpack.  The beach we pulled up on was just awesome though!  SO pretty...

I hadn´t really heard too many good things about Jaco, just that it is the prostitution (which is 100% legal here) and drug capital of Costa Rica.  I actually thought it was okay!!  Not my favorite town in Costa Rica, pretty touristy, but it was alright!  I walked up to a little shop in the middle of the town where you can book tours and stuff, and told them I wanted to surf!  They told me the best place in town was right across the street - literally.

So I dumped my backpack and bags there for the day (yes I am very trusting) and took off with my swimsuit and camera to SURF!!  Luckily the owner of this surf shop, who used to compete on the Costa Rican national surf team, said he was taking another girl out for a private lesson in about 30 minutes, so I got to tag along!  BEST DECISION EVER!  ;)  I went with the owner / lead instructor Mauricio, his American gf Lacey (who just tagged along), and another American girl, Liza.  Both of the other girls were around my age and we hit it off! 

So after about a 10 minute lesson on land on a long board...

...I am not kidding you, I popped right up on my first attempt at a wave!  Who knew I was a natural surfer!  Haha... okay not really, I crashed the next two times without really getting up, but it helps so much to have someone who actually knows what they´re doing!  I´v tried to surf a couple of other times, but never really figured it out or gotten up.  I sure can now, all alone!  He taught me how to paddle and how to read the waves and pick the good ones, etc.  I´m really not to bad!! 

It was SUPER cool and I think I´m going to pick it up as a hobby.  Except I live in Kansas...so maybe not. ;)  So anyways, after surfing for about 4 hours, with plenty of breaks in between, I was WORN OUT (and decided I needed some more pictures)! I see now why surfers are so ripped!  It is hard work to paddle with just your arms to get up enough speed to get up on the wave! 

Pretty sure I bruised a rib trying to hold the board on one side of me and fight the waves to get out to the water.  Other than that, and a couple mouthfulls of salt water, nothing but awesome surfing!! :)  I walked around Jaco a little bit, bought a few more souvenirs.  I found a really nice necklace and earrings I wanted to buy for my mom, as well as a dolphin necklace for Allie, but I didn´t have enough local money (colones).  I argued and argued, and ended up completely dumping out all of my money, which was mainly a huge pile of coins, counting through it all, and finally convincing the guy to give it all to me for the last of my money!  BROKE! ;)  Not really, I still had USD, but I wanted to get rid of my colones. Mission accomplished! 

So I really did NOT want to take the public bus from Jaco back to San Jose or to Alajuela (little town outside of San Jose where the airport really is) tonight.  Even though it is only $4 for a ticket, it takes several hours and to be honest, I´m just over public transportation here!  So the guy I surfed with (Mauricio) said he had a friend who would take me for $60.  That´s a lot, I know, but it was worth it to me.  He was supposed to meet me back at the surf shop at 4:30.  I was sitting there waiting around 4:20 and guess who just happens to walk by on the street.  MARTIN, my friend from Texas that I met in La Fortuna...who I really came here to meet up with but we never found each other!  Twist of fate! ;)  He is so nice to have around because he speaks fluent Spanish, which always makes me feel better. :)  He didn´t want to take the bus either, so we ended up splitting the cost of the ride here...WELL worth it!  Our driver - who happend to be American but married a woman from Costa Rica - dropped us off in Alajuela, which is actually closer to the airport than San Jose and a much smaller town.  We walked right across the street and were both so hungry from surfing all day (he was surfing too...just farther down on the beach) that we ate at McDonalds!  Haha...that place is everywhere!  Then we caught a taxi to Johny´s Place, some little hostel, and that´s where we are now. No air conditoning, but I´m pretty sure they have hot showers!  I am fried, again, even thought I put on spf 55 sunblock...I´m beginning to wonder if that stuff even works!?  Hopefully the shower isn´t too painful! I am officially ready to come home after one of the best vactions ever!! :)