Erica's #69 - Go to the top of the monument in Indianapolis

Like many cities large and small, Indianapolis has, at it's heart, a monument.  The monument is actually called the Soldiers and Sailors monument, and is a tribute to the Hoosiers who served in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Frontiers War, and the Spanish-American War.  The very first time either of us had taken the 284 foot journey to the top of the monument was on our very first date, over 5 years ago.  It was August, and there was no air conditioning up there.  Yes, I'm more than certain we smelled lovely when we stopped in for dinner at a nice downtown dining establishment later on...

We hadn't been back since then, but I thought it would be fun, plus they remodeled the interior space a couple of years ago,so we wanted to see how it had changed.  The tiny elevator seems not to have changed (yes, you can choose to walk up the narrow staircase all the way to the top, but yes, we decided the $2 fee was worth it to skip the 270 steps), but the interior at the top is slightly better, with at least new glass to peer through from your perch in the city center.  The space up there is still very small - good thing there were only a few other people up there with us at any given time!

We lucked out and picked a gorgeous February day to head out to the monument, and we had a fabulous view of the Capitol, Lucas Oil Stadium, and the War Memorial.  The architecture inside the monument is also pretty neat!

We also took time to tour the war museum in the base of the monument - something we've been meaning to do forever, and finally got around to. It's a pretty decent museum for being limited to a small space.  And we stopped in to check out the Central Library after lunch.  Not to mention that earlier in the day, we toured the Benjamin Harrison House, which Mel will blog about later since it was on her list.  We had a pretty decent day playing tourists in our own city!

Mel's #50 - Go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter

I was super late getting into the Harry Potter game.

When the Harry Potter books were first released, I was in high school and I can’t remember any of my friends reading the books or making a big fuss about them. This may have been due to my entrenchment in a faction of American Evangelicalism that believed that the Harry Potter books were the new manifestation of evil in our sinful world. It wasn’t until I was at college in Minnesota that I noticed some friends had the books on their bookshelves, which was surprising since I went to an Evangelical Christian university.

I’ve never been one of those people to argue about books, or board games, or television shows, music, or movies being “of the devil.” In fact, I tend to roll my eyes whenever I hear pastors blame culture for the deteriorating state of humanity.

Let’s fast-forward a bit to my first job out of college, at a non-denominational church in western Colorado. It was summer and I had a house full of interns to look after and a new town and job to adjust to. The final Harry Potter book was to be released and some of my interns and students from our church youth group were planning on going to the local bookstore for a sort of release party. I thought it would be fun to come along and we all had a great time together. Again, I found myself scratching my head as to why this whole thing was so taboo among the community of believers we were a part of. The next day at work in the church, the youth pastor mentioned something in passing about praying for the kids who had exposed themselves to witchcraft through reading the Harry Potter books, which eventually led to a really weird conversation that ended in me completing a reading assignment…I was to read a book called “Shadowboxing,” which was a book about spiritual warfare. In the conversation I found out that this particular church was very against the Harry Potter series and culture, and believed it was a sort of gateway drug that would lead to teenagers becoming satan-worshippers. Weird, right?

Well, rebel that I am, I decided to read all of the Harry Potter books. It was difficult for me to understand how this pastor could take such a serious stance against a children’s book, but had never actually read any of the books for herself. I knew that I had to do this in secret, out of fear that if the youth pastor found out I was reading the Harry Potter series, I could lose my job. Yes, I know that is ridiculous. So, I became a 25 year old top-secret Harry Potter reader and managed to read all of the books within 7 weeks. And yes, I was hooked, and no, I wasn’t compelled to go practice witchcraft or sorcery.

Fast forward another 7 years, and I found myself posing for a photo on a bridge in front of Hogwarts at Universal Studios’ Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Smiling with a frosty cup of Butterbeer in my hand. Erica and I decided to trek up to Orlando after our Cayamo trip to extend our vacation a bit. Here’s the review that this 32 year old, formerly secret Harry Potter reader gives this place:

It.

Was.

Awesome.

Seriously, I’ve never seen anything like it. Universal Studios did a really incredible job of transforming a section of the park into a real-life version of the best parts of the Harry Potter books and movies. I was so impressed with the recreation of Hogsmeade as the theme of the area surrounding the Harry Potter themed attractions. Of course, the coolest thing was the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction that takes place in the mock-up of Hogwarts Castle. The attraction is incredible, giving visitors a tour of the castle, which includes really cool interaction with props and settings from the series, ending with a thrilling ride using elements of simulated flight and animatronics. It was a truly incredible experience. We stopped in to a couple of the shops in Hogsmeade, and marveled at the line of people waiting to get in to Ollivanders wand shop, which is in and of itself, a superb attraction. I had a really great time and the joy I felt might be childlike, but it was so cool. I hope I never lose the ability to feel that way, and I know that as we walked through the rest of Universal Studios, Erica and I both were thinking that we can’t wait to bring our children here someday.

Erica's #28 and #101 - Drop a message in a bottle in a body of water AND Spend a day at the beach

I'm combining these two, since they occurred on the same day in the very same place!

If you read my music festival blog, you read about our group of 10 catching a cab on the island of Tortola during day-in-port #2 on Cayamo.  We took a short but steep ride from the port to a little place called Brewer's Bay, on the opposite side of the island.  The views from the top of the hill/mountain on the cab ride over were breathtaking - I know the shots I got on the fly don't do it justice at all, but here's one as a sample:

Nice, huh?  Brewer's Bay is gorgeous too...nice sweeping beach, a little bar/snack hut, clear turquoise waters, and even a rocky area to one side that provided opportunity for the many snorkelers to do some underwater sightseeing.  Sure, there appeared to be people living in makeshift tents in the wooded area just behind the beach, but who wouldn't want to live here?  (Side note:  I changed out of my swimming attire back in these very same woods before we headed back to the port - this was preferable to the unsavory little bathroom located at the bar!)

Our group staked out a spot, and then most of us took right to the water, where many of us spent most of the day rotating in and out of the water, tossing a football around in the surf.  Some of the group spent a good portion of the day in the sand, napping, chatting or reading and enjoying the scenery.  At one point, we all headed up to the bar for a few cold drinks and deep-fried snacks before heading back to the beach for more fun in the sun.

Since one of my goals was to drop a message in a body of water, and we happened to find ourselves on a cruise, I managed to snag someone's empty wine bottle the night before this beach day, and brought it with me to the beach.  I decided against just dropping it off the side of the cruise ship, as I didn't want to spend the remainder of Cayamo experiencing what the brig is like on a nice big boat.  Time spent in our interior cabin was confinement enough for me.  I wrote up a useless message, since big, sweeping sentiment eluded my mind at the moment I was writing this thing, corked the bottle, and headed toward the surf.

I had to swim a ways out to make sure the bottle didn't just come right back to shore.  I was about even with that anchored catamaran when I shoved it on its way out to sea.  Good thing the water was so clear - I am a strong swimmer, but tend to panic/hyperventilate a bit when I can't see the bottom in a body of water.

I have no illusions that it was swept out into the deep blue Atlantic - I'm sure it washed back to this very same beach when the tide next came in.  Brewer's Bay is likely too large and protected to have a strong current, but hey, you never know!  I put an email address inside in case anyone who found it wanted to contact me - no word yet!

We had a great day with friends on the beach, couldn't ask for a better way to wrap up our time in the British Virgin Islands!

Erica's #93 - Get a fish and keep it alive for at least 3 months(3/4/2014)

A couple of years ago, we got on a pet fish kick and went out and adopted 4 goldfish, assuming they would be the easiest for those of us who aren't masters of fish-rearing to keep alive.  I mean, I remember winning goldfish as a kid at carnivals by tossing the ping pong ball in their little bowl, and they always seemed to last much longer than my parents would have liked them to. Realistically, no 8-year-old is going to clean a fish tank, or remember to properly feed the fish.

Alas, all four goldfish, named after the Golden Girls, naturally, experienced burial via porcelain throne within just a few weeks.

When we decided to have another go at keeping fish alive around Thanksgiving last year, we opted for a couple of Tetras.  They are supposed to be beginner fish (and they were half off on Black Friday).  For good measure, we picked up a couple of ghost shrimp - those things are pretty amazing, you can see right through them!

Well, the first couple of Tetras went belly-up within a day.  We took them back to the pet shop (they actually have a 2-week warranty on fish), and got replacements.  We had our water tested, and came home with new fish, hoping for the best.  Well, the results were the same, poor deceased Tetras within a day or two.  The shrimp seemed pleased with the horrible city water (with some fish-friendly stress coat added) they were subjected to, and seemed to be thriving though.I went back to the pet store for one last attempt, and finally talked to a guy who said Tetras weren't REALLY beginner fish, as they are labeled, and really require a larger tank, heater, etc. that we didn't currently own.  He recommended trying a Betta (which we should have probably started with, since I had one in college that lived a good two years in a tiny bowl, with all of the cleanliness a busy and lazy college student provides).  Lucky us, Bettas were on sale, so I picked up the last lonely female Betta (they aren't as "pretty" as the males), and brought her home.

And...over 3 months later, she's still alive!  She did manage to kill all of the ghost shrimp within a couple of days - for anyone who hasn't had a Betta before, they are aggressive, and you can really only have one per tank, as they will fight to the death.  She wasn't a fan of the shrimp, and they only managed to avoid her for so long...RIP ghost shrimpies.

But Sushi (as she has been named) is alive and well!  Success!

---------------------Sushi!----------------------->>>

Erica's #71 - Go to a concert outside the U.S.(2/10/2014)

Yes, this is going to be yet another Cayamo-related post!  (Plug for Cayamo - take that journey, and you'll be able to cross a ton of things off of your bucket-list!)  Presumably, we saw a ton of concerts outside the US while on Cayamo.  There were 33 musical acts on the boat, and we did get to see a great deal of them perform at one time or another over the week.  This post will be about one specific show, since it happens to be the only show we saw on land outside the US...

If you've read my blog about going to a music festival, you probably read about us going to the island of Jost Van Dyke to a little beach bar called Foxy's to see one of our very favorite bands, Humming House, play.  We hopped on a smaller taxi boat, took a ride (including a free beer!) over to the island, and went for a swim in the beautiful blue water of the bay before the show.  After we picked up our complimentary rum punch drink from the bar, we gathered around to hear Humming House play.

If you haven't listened to Humming House yet, you really should, and here's your chance:



Pretty great, right?  They're even better live!  They have so much energy and charisma on stage - they sucked us right in when we went to see the for the first time in Indy, on the recommendation of some friends, not knowing what to expect.  They won over a couple of fans for life that night!

After playing their set, they stepped down in front of the stage with their instruments and played a few songs unplugged while the crowd gathered in close to experience this unique moment.  There just aren't that many times in life when you can enjoy a moment like that - listening to music in its purest form, at a bar on a gorgeous Caribbean beach, the sun shining down, surrounded by friends.  It really was one of our greatest days.

Erica's #76 - Go to a Music Festival and Mel's #37 - Go on a Cruise

We really blew this one out of the water - not only did we make it to a music festival, we went to a floating music festival on a cruise ship in the Caribbean with a very fun group of friends!  Ahh, Cayamo...

All ready for our "Bertscursion"!

It's hard to describe Cayamo - it is somehow more than just a music festival, and more even than you would expect from a music festival combined with a cruise vacation.  Cayamo is a magical thing, almost a living, breathing entity in and of itself.  If you haven't been, you just don't know.  We'd been once before, back in 2010, and, while it remains as one of the best vacations we've ever taken, Cayamo 2014 definitely topped it!  Spending Cayamo 2014 with 8 other people who we'd now consider great friends, even if we hadn't met or spent much time together before setting foot on the boat, made this time around even more unforgettable.

Cayamo features musical acts around every corner from about noon until 3am (if you know where to find the late-night jam crew) daily - there really never is a dull moment, except for that part where you stumble back to your cabin, exhausted from another fun-filled day, and rest up a bit so you can tackle the next day.  We spent our mornings reading on the sun deck, and were cleaned up and in our best beach-wear, ready for seemingly endless hours of listening to some of our favorite music acts, old favorites and new sounds, by early afternoon.

We saw some really high quality music on the ship - Buddy Miller, Kris Kristofferson, Brandi Carlile, Humming House, The Lone Bellow, Erin McCarley, Lucie Silvas, Stephen Kellogg, Max Gomez, Hey Marseilles, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby, The Secret Sisters, and Shawn Mullins.  There are probably others that I've left out, but there is never a lack of talent on Cayamo!

The crew at Foxy's

Cayamo's port-of-call this year was Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.  On our first day in port, we had an excursion booked with all of our friends on the boat to see one of our favorite bands, Humming House, play a show at a beach bar called Foxy's on the island of Jost Van Dyke.  What a day that was - you couldn't ask for a better location for taking in some amazing music - frozen rum drink in hand, toes in the sand, a beautiful Caribbean-blue bay lapping at the shore just yards away.

Day two in port found our group catching a cab for 10 to the other side of the island, to a little place called Brewer's Bay.  I should mention that Tortola is a very hilly little place, and the cab ride was slightly harrowing, but we survived.  The views were astounding as we crested the high points on the winding road across the island.  Most of our group spent a good portion of the day in the water playing some version of catch, or a slightly modified version of hot potato we termed "tap-tap".  Throw in some beach-side brews, a little soaking up the sun on the beach, my swim to the middle of the bay to drop off my message in a bottle (blog on that to come later), and ending the day with lunch in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant near the port, and you had ten happy people climbing back on the ship to sail away from the islands.

Brewer's Bay

We sailed away from Tortola to the sweet sounds of The Lone Bellow (another of our favorite bands) on the pool deck.  It eased the pain having to watch the beautiful shores of BVI fade into the sunset, knowing that we were now headed back toward home and real life.

We pretty much had the best week ever on this trip, no exaggeration.  We couldn't ask for better company, better weather, or better music to be surrounded by.  I'll leave you with a few highlights, including photos:

• These people:
  
• Our pal Mis singing in the Atrium backed by Brandi Carlile during Brandioke
  
• The Humming House dance party in Bliss Lounge that lasted until about 5am Friday morning (the morning we returned to Miami) - there's a dance party somewhere in that dark photo!
  
• Cagney's Steakhouse - delicious!
  
• Floating around in the Caribbean
  
• A stage with this backdrop
  
• The quarter-pusher machine in the casino - "FREE" bubbly!

  

  "It's like Plinko, but sadder"

• Cards Against Humanity
  
• Seemingly endless buckets of these - Bar Serveeeece!
  

Erica's #8 - Play Blackjack at a Casino (2/12/2014)

So, here's another post that is Cayamo related...I'll save the actual post about Cayamo for later, but it just so happens that my first chance to play real blackjack in a real (I guess cruise ship casinos are considered "real"?) casino came about because of that magical floating music festival called Cayamo.  Oh yeah, this post is about blackjack, so back to that...

I'm fairly certain (make that 100% certain) that I have never, ever, ever, wait...there was that one time...nope, never won money in a casino.  I know people who have, but I am that person who takes any small, hard-won earnings from the one-armed bandit and puts them right back into the next bright, shiny, dinging money-pit with pretty flashing lights that has obviously been waiting for ME to pull that lever so it can pay out a jackpot.  The root of my "lack of winning" issue (we won't call it that yucky "L" word) has to be that my casino adventures begin and end with slot machines, right?

Incorrect, my friends.  But I'll get back to that point in a minute.

I'd never had the guts to saddle up to a table with a living, breathing human being dealing cards in my life.  I've been to Vegas several times, on cruise ships, in a number of Indiana's fantastic floating (and now land-based) gambling establishments, Indian casinos, and hotel-lobby casinos (thanks, Butte, Montana, for having ten casinos within spitting distance from anywhere you happen to stand).  I've lost money to friends playing Texas-Hold'em on kitchen tables.  I've played lame games of blackjack as a kid with poker chips to be twith that were worthless.  But sitting down at a table with a dealer who knows pretty much all there is to know about the game, and 1-5 other strangers who probably have done their homework too is intimidating.

What did it take for me to play some real world blackjack, you might ask?  Nothing more than setting this goal as one of my 101 things, a few ounces of liquid courage, $20 burning a hole in my pocket, having the good fortune to be on a cruise ship in international waters, a few minutes spent watching other people do it, and the piece de resistance - a pal who knows what the hell she's doing to stand behind me and tell me what to do and when to do it!  (Thanks Amy!)

The first night I sat down and played, I played at the $5 minimum bet table on the same $20 for at least an hour and a half!  I did eventually end up losing it all, but I can't complain - I had a blast! Again, I have to thank Amy for her helpful advice.  By the end of that night (or early morning), I had at least picked up some good basic strategy, other than the old "get closest to 21" stuff that's pretty self-explanatory.  I played a few more times on the trip, and never had any decent luck!

So, in case you were wondering, my lack of winning still abounds (I was just donating to Norwegian Cruise Line, right?), turns out it isn't just the slot machines that enjoy taking my cash,  but I had a blast, and at least felt like I was in control of my winning (or lack thereof).  I know there's still a great deal of chance involved in the game of blackjack, and the house still has a slight advantage, but I know it's less than the advantage the slot machines have!

I've now decided that a trip to a local casino and their blackjack tables is in order for my upcoming birthday celebration.  Maybe I'll have more luck this time!

(I'm also not sure how Mel got away with taking these pictures - we didn't know that was on the list of "no-no's" in a casino, and experienced several people being told to put away cameras throughout the week!)