Fun in Salt Lake City

This past weekend John and I went on an adventure to the great state of Utah. Salt Lake City precisely. John was interviewing for a job at a hospital there and I went along for the ride and to assure myself that I could actually enjoy living there. We definitely have some important decisions to make in the near future, but for the weekend, I was just glad to be off work, spending time with my husband and exploring a fun new city. 

Wouldn't you know, the rental car we got was a Sentra! It was almost like driving good old Al around again.

Our hotel was called Little America and along with the big room and marble tub, we also got chocolates on our pillow every night. Fancy!

The view of Salt Lake City from our hotel room window.

The mountain views were definitely the best part of the trip. So beautiful! 

We enjoyed a beautiful mountain sunrise on our ride up to Park City Sunday morning. 

We had some fun exploring Park City's Main Street.

Then we got to ride a ski lift/gondola from the parking lot the base of the mountain at Canyons ski resort. 

Where we were pleasantly surprised to find our favorite Oklahoma beer, Boulevard Wheat, on tap. Love John's glasses? Those are his "I-forgot-my-sunglasses-at-the-hotel" last minute replacement pair. 

Back in Salt Lake, we saw the site of the Olympic torch on our tour of the city. 

And just when this city was winning me over, I found a spot that felt even more like home---good old TCBY! A self-serve TCBY, actually. Fancy!

Beating up the 'Noles

Last weekend John and I took one of our first road trips from our new home in Charleston. We love weekend road trips and have several close-to-Charleston getaway spots on our list for this year (including Harry Potter world!!) We didn't do much sightseeing this time though because this trip was all about SOONER FOOTBALL!

We hadn't been to an OU football game since the 2009 season. When we lived in Oklahoma, we went to every game. So this long hiatus has been hard (especially on John). So when the Sooners traveled to Tallahassee to play FSU, we couldn't miss our only opportunity this year to yell "BOOMER SOONER!" in person.

After staying the night with John's cousin Jerry in Jacksonville, we headed into Tallahassee early Saturday morning so we could be at Game Day.

We're coming...to your city! (John's fav show)

Though you see a lot of crimson in this picture, don't be fooled. There were very few Sooner fans at Game Day and we were outnumbered by the 'Noles, who you can see were also excited to be there (cell phone pic!)

After sticking around to watch Corso pick the Sooners to win (yeah!), we headed over to the OU camp, the parking lot of the convention center, where Sooner tailgates and RVs were plentiful. We joined in on Chesapeake's tailgate, where they had three large screen TVs showing other games and were giving away free food and drinks (Thanks Chesapeake!)

We spent most of the afternoon there meeting other East Coast Sooner fans who were just as excited as we were to be there. Even the band stopped by the play "Boomer Sooner!"

So good to see the Pride of Oklahoma again :)

And we met Sooner, who also stopped by the tailgate.

Kendall and Blake, our friends from Birmingham who also went to OU, made the trip for the FSU game, too. We had a great time hanging out with them again at the Chesapeake tailgate!

Me and John outside the stadium heading into the game.

All the crimson and garnet makes it hard to tell who are Sooner fans and who are Seminole fans.

FSU's famous Osceola and his fiery spear during pre-game.

After a mix of anxiously biting my nails and victory dancing with the big Sooner fan sitting next to me, the Sooners (barley) pulled out the win! Phew! Sure glad we didn't have to hang our heads on the 7 hour drive home the next day.

There's only 1 Oklahoma!

(John loves the Sooners so much, he let the sun paint his face crimson)

Myrtle Beach

After our stop at the sand castle, we headed to lunch and then to North Myrtle Beach. All I'm going to say about lunch is never ever eat at a seafood buffet.

We decided to go to North Myrtle because we heard it was less crowded and touristy than the regular ol' Myrtle. It was Sunday and the beach was still pretty crowded considering it's lined by sky-rise condos as far as the eye can see. We had fun at the beach but I think I'll stick with Folly, 10 minutes from home, from now on.

Note our favorite beach cooler Sarah is using as a footstool. That's the cooler I made for John for the Alphatraz date party back in college. Oh the memories!

Me and John reading in our awesome chairs. It looks goofy, but the face and arm holes make it very convenient to continue reading while on your stomach.

After several hours on the beach we decided to head out to find dinner at some better place than a seafood buffet. We went to Broadway on the Beach, the tourist mothership of Myrtle Beach. The whole strip mall is up on a boardwalk and covered with tacky tourist shops, restaurants and something called MagiQuest (sounded pretty awesome actually).

We attempted to eat at Margaritaville, but the line was too long. So we ate at a little beach-like bar outside Margaritaville instead. Close enough!

Those things in the water below us on the board walk...hundreds of fish begging for food! I've never seen anything like that before.

Haha...caught Mom coming our of the Stupid Factory! :)

Castle in the sand

Myrtle Beach is only 2 hours north of Charleston and Mom really wanted to check it out while she was here. So we left early on a Sunday morning and headed to the Grand Strand (that's what they call the Myrtle Beach area... yeah I didn't know that either).

We stopped on the southern outskirt of Myrtle at Huntington Beach State Park to check out Atalaya Castle. A castle in the sand on the beach? Who wouldn't want to see that?

Atalaya was the winter home of rich couple Archer and Anna Huntington (she's a famous sculptor) and was built in the 1930s. Archer was influenced by Spanish architecture and culture while building the castle and named it Atalaya, which means "watch tower" in Spanish.

The castle didn't have a whole lot of interesting history beyond that, but it was interesting to see and get to explore the many rooms and hallways inside.

The outside of the castle.

Inside the castle courtyard.

John and Larry trying to see the ocean from the rooftop, despite the "Do not enter" sign.

Sarah and John in the bear cages. Yes, bears.

Best sand castle I've ever seen!