Girls Trip to San Diego

I was feeling overdue for a Girls Trip once Tyson had his Peru trip underway, so I called up Julie and Krishawn and got them on board to make a plan (totally not hard).  We decided on San Diego, hoping for it to be a bit warm, at least warmer than Colorado.  We made our traditional Girls Weekend turn into 5 days of total relaxation.  It was awesome!

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, in the heart of the Gaslamp Quarter.  Boy was it quite the experience!!!  It was the Party Central hotel!!!  We were quite entertained at all the craziness happening around us, including the wedding below our window, and the bachelorette party across the hall, and other things that its best not to mention!  You know you are staying at the party place when you see people come into the fancy hotel with rolling coolers, or when you hear people on the street suggest you head to the Hard Rock for a good party night!

They are goofy - I love 'em!

We ate, and ate, and ate, and ate.  I don't think I can say that enough!!!  The food downtown is all amazing, and we never could try out all the places that we wanted to.  One highlight was Melting Pot of course.  Julie nearly got us kicked out of there with her uncontrollable laughter and crazy made-up stories about ourselves!  We found a little gelato place that was amazing!  I'd never had gelato, but I thought I'd gone to heaven after trying it!  We actually cancelled our Melting Pot reservation that was just for dessert for a 2nd night (can't believe we did that), just to go have gelato - it was that heavenly good!!! 

Other highlights...

• pedicures, massages and facials - that was all heavenly as well!  
• saw "This Means War" - hilarious to watch with girlfriends.
• watching Julie try on a million dresses at Ann Taylor so she could get the awesome deal!  At least it wasn't me for once!

Taking a break from shopping!

• shopping in the Gaslamp District at all the crazy stores.  They were entertaining for sure, as well as the crazy homeless people arguing with tourists.

We found these beauties in the cheapest jewelry boutique we have ever come across, and it had millioins of pieces of jewelry in it.  It was unbelievably ridiculous!  There wasn't one thing in the entire store that was worth buying!

• our segway tour - especially Julie's runaway segway! 

So we did a segway tour of Balboa Park.  It was so pretty, and so fun to ride the segways.  We had to meander through downtown and all the traffic and people, then up to the park.  We had people starring at us every which way, which would have been fine except Julie's segway went into uncontrollable turbo speed near a large group of soccer men up in the park.  Krishawn and I were dying, watching her run off the grass, headed straight for a stone bench, screaming.  Somehow at the last minute, she missed the bench, kept right on going, then finally jumped off (which our tour guide said NEVER jump off -he's never seen it end pretty).  Somehow they survived...her and the $6000 segway!  It was hilarious to watch, and a bit scary too!  And she says she never even saw a bench!

Julie getting her lesson - don't know if she caught it all! :)

• Julie being our personal trainer for a day, which made it so Krishawn and I couldn't walk normal for a week since we were so sore!

Julie was in heaven with her giant Diet Coke, getting geared up to whip our butts into shape at the gym!

• cartwheels on the beach on Coronado Island

Yes, I was serious about the cartwheels!  It was quite the site, and I did join in!

 

Party's over...Time to fly home.  :(
Until next time...
 



Adventures in Machu Picchu

Tyson gave himself a birthday present and took a trip with two fellow dentists to Machu Picchu, Peru in February.  They went for eight days, four of which was to travel in and out of the remote city, and the other four exploring the ancient Inca city that sits above 8000 ft. in the Andes. 

Out of the hundreds of pictures he took, here are a few highlights:

Ancient city of Machu Picchu, with the famous Wayna Picchu mountain shooting straight up in the background. 

The Inca's had carved a trail up to the top of it and Tyson and crew hiked to the top.

Just amazing how many buildings they built and carved out of stone.  This is part of the servants area.

This is the entire city of Machu Picchu.  The King's living area is all on the left side, the temple in the middle, and the servants area is on the right.  The king was the only one who had a plumbed toilet, lucky guy!

Check out how tightly carved every single stone is.  In the temple area the stones were carved nearly perfect, while in the servants area they were all sorts of shapes, although still tightly connected.

The Inca Temple

This is one of the entrances into the city, along this fault line on the mountainside.  The Inca Draw Bridge is in the middle and the logs were lifted up, just like a traditional drawbridge to keep people out of their city.

Behind these guys you can see the terraces where they grew all of their food.

The llamas were just hanging out everywhere, and quite friendly.

Jim, Tyson, and Mike