Hot weather and all the rest

So it's been hot as heck outside lately, I swear I hate summer weather, give me mid 70's all year long and I'd be happy.
I have a serious problem, in the evening when I get home from work I eat dinner and immediately procede to fall asleep on the couch until about 8 or 9pm, hence I'm not sleepy when I "try" to go to bed. So I stay up late, wake up tired and the whole vicious cycle repeats...it's torture. Tonight I'm determined to stay up with no naps until bedtime. So far so good.

I love peanut butter and jelly, especially lately with my new improved organic/natural peanut butter. It's weird having to keep peanut butter in the fridge b/c the oil separates from the butter and so it doesn't make for an appetizing appearance so the refridgerating it keeps that from happening.

The apple iphone is all over the news and web. I am a self confessed gadget lover. I love my ipod, my kickass digital cameral, etc, etc, etc. I really want an iphone, but i don't want the hefty price. So I think I'll wait until the second generation iphone comes out. By that time maybe someone besides AT&T will be selling them and be a little less expensive. I've been a faithful sprint customer for four years now and had to leave them now, they've been a great company

I really want to go see a concert. I haven't been to one in years and I missed The Who this year in Indianapolis. Next year Rusty and I have talked about going to Bonnaroo (A music festival in TN) We will definitely be going VIP b/c I can't see myself using a porta potty for four days (*FYI Michael saw a porta potty on his trip to Montana called a Honey Pot. LOL I thought that was too funny to not share. )There are so many great bands that go to Bonnaroo that it should cover my concert fever for years.

I have to admit it, I always have been and always will be a dork!

It's true, what the title says, I always have been and always will be a dork. I was a dork in high school and unlike then I have totally accepted and am proud of that fact. I would like to emphasize one of those points. I have a deep love for DVD commentaries, in fact once I watch a movie, I then watch the dvd commentaries of the film along with the stars, or directors or sometimes producers. I don't know how it started or with what movie but I have seen dvd commentaries on every single one of my dvds...sometimes I enjoy the commentary more that the movie itself. Just one of those little details into the psyche of Rachel Fischer.

a guilty pleasure revealed.

So I've been listening for over a year and I'm in love. In love with Mr. Howard A. Stern.....yes the shock jock, Howard Stern. I've had a sirius radio for over three years now and when I heard stern was coming to sirius last year, I was excited. I had occasionally seen his E! Network show and thought it was pretty humorous, but this was going to be a little different...NO censoring on satellite! This would be howard no holds bar and I couldn't wait. January 2006 came and I was hooked. Howard, Robin, Artie, Fred, Gary (Baba Booey) were great. Everyone seemed so comfortable and relaxed, and their show was without a dull moment. Whether it was stern interviewing celebrities, porn stars or the occasional "wack packer" you couldn't turn the channel and several times I was late for work b/c of a bit on the show. One thing that I totally misunderstood about Stern was I thought he was just a perv who liked to talk to porn stars and mentally challenged people, but there in lies his genius. He's actually a nice guy, sweet guy. You don't expect to like it but you do b/c stern is just that good. So if you haven't heard him check him out on sirius. There is a three day preview of sirius for guests so you can check it out....you won't be disappointed.

Oh also, besides Howard, my hero Martha Stewart has a channel on Sirius...how cool is that.

Organic...what's the fuss all about???

Well b/c of my recent trip out west, I've decided for a lifestyle change. Ever since mortuary school I have gained more weight than I would have liked and am trying to slim down. I have decided to go the organic and Mediterraneanroute. One thing i did notice in California that everyone does the organic thing. So on my return home, I went to the grocery store and decided to buy as much organic as I can and try new things. So I bought organic natural peanut butter, soy milk, organic nonfat yogurt, granola, etc. I am really enjoying everything, expect for the soy milk so Jennifer at work (who's very well versed in the organic revolution) said to buy just regular organic milk with no hormones. I am trying to eat breakfast every morning and am not eating as much fast food. Maybe once a week. As far as the Mediterranean diet goes, I'm eating a lot of pitas, hummus, olives, olive oil, feta cheese, etc. According to what I've been researching, one needs on a Mediterranean diet is a staple of olive oil, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, and very little red meat, dairy, but some cheeses are ok in moderation. They also stress the fact of several little meals throughout the day. So far so good, and I'm not starving myself. Plus at work, everyone has joined the biggest loser contest....so besides the best funeral home in general we will also be the best looking funeral home around....LOL

My man list

My good friend Sarah created "The Man List", I loved the idea so much I decided to rip her off and create my own list.

1)Robert Redford

I have loved this man since I was 13 and I saw the film "The Way We Were" that Mr. Redford stars in with Barbra Streisand. It's a love story with a sad ending, which seems to be the running MO in most love stories. In this one, in case you've never seen it...Barbra's character has been in love with Hubble (Redford) since college. He was the golden boy that everything came easy to with the classic american good looks, brains, athletic ability, etc. Katie (Streisand) is smart, but has to work very hard to stay in University. She's political and cares about people and injustice in the world. Somehow a few years later, they fall in love, marry and things start to fall apart, of course they don't stay together. It's so tragic it's wonderful!

Anyway, Redford to me is the epitome of classic good looks, brains, style, etc...I love everything about him.

2)Christian Bale

I have loved him since way back when he was in the film "Empire of the Sun" and "Little Women" with Winona Ryder. But my favorite role of Christian's is the sexy serial killer Patrick Bateman in the movie "American Psycho". He's just so darn good!

3) Hugh Grant

Forget about the whole Divine Brown thing, Hugh Grant to me is charming, handsome and hilarious...

4) Julian Mcmahon and Dylan Walsh

If you've never seen Nip/Tuck you don't know what you're missing...these guys are great.

6) Jonathan Antin

I don't know what it is about him, but I think he's awesome.

6)Jared Leto

But only in the My So-Called Life years, he was so good looking you could almost call him pretty.

7)Matthew Mcconaughey

Pre-naked bongo drumming, winnebago driving, kinda gross Matthew, there was the "A Time to Kill" and "Contact" Matthew, that's how I prefer to remember him....

8) Brad Pitt

I'm totally Team Jolie, so I am loving how much in love Brad Pitt looks, to me he's never looked better.

Bad Blogger

Hey everyone sorry I haven't been a very good blogger lately, especially towards the end of my trip. I do have good reasons though. The weather! It was rough going on our way back home and we actually got home a day early so we could recoup. I'm sorry for the lack of photos, but believe me you would not have been interested in Nebraska, Iowa or Indiana. Wyoming was a total bust because it snowed the whole time and I couldn't see any sights!

In closing I want to thank everyone for checking the blog and the prayers, phone calls and support. I could really tell I had people who cared about me, I wished I could have taken everyone with me, but I don't think we would have had enough leg room *especially since I had to bring back all that beer* LOL.....just kidding Dave!

I think I'm going to keep this blog up, just change the name of it...keep on reading.
Peace

What's that Smell??? I think it's the Lake

Day 6

Today was a day of leisure if you will, when we left Sparks ( little town outside of Reno) the only plans we had were to make it to the Great Salt Lake and Salt Lake City anything beyond was just good luck b/c Salt Lake City was 450 miles away. Nevada loves their gambling...please let me explain, we stopped to get gas in a little town that had three or four casinos and the gas station had a bigger gambling section than it had for the gas station! Speaking of gas, I can't help but notice something is up with Chevron. EVERY where we have gone, Chevron gas is at least 20 cents more expensive than other gas stations! Below is the mountain range we drove past in Nevada on our way to Salt Lake, the temp stayed in the 50's ALL DAY today and it doesn't look like it's going to get warm until we reach Ohio or maybe Illinois. Aren't these mountains beautiful, the funny thing is that along this mountain range we passed at least Five prisons and if that wasn't scary enough the DON'T PICK UP HITCHHIKERS signs were.


Oh and thanks to Annie, I finally saw my first tumbleweed. It was blowing across the road and Annie alerted me to it. But I didn't have time to take a picture.
The drive aside from the mountains was pretty uneventful and we passed the time by listening to our last book on tape. These have been a lifesaver and really helped to pass the time. Approaching the Great Salt Lake was interesting, according to my travel book the lake had a strange smell. Well I figured it was an exaggeration. Well it wasn't! The only thing that can live in the lake is a decaying bacteria. The smell, can only be described as a mix of skunk and other pungent materials. Annie says it wasn't that bad, but I thought it really smelled. We pulled into the lake visitor center and to my surprise were asked to pay five bucks to park. Now I try not to be a judgemental person but I couldn't help but notice that the crowd at the center was NOT there to see the lake. All the people were young, wearing black, had died black hair, some had mohawks, etc. Apparently there was going to be a rock concert. We walked across the parking lot passed the crowd over to the lake. We discovered that you cannot walk out across the sand near the lake without sinking so I will bring a little of the lake home with me on my Nikes.
Below are some pics I took. The lake, is quite beautiful.

Salt Lake City was just a few miles down the road. The city was the recent host of the Winter Olympics. It's a really lovely little place with a lot of attitude. Downtown was easy to drive around and it seems like everyone's a walker there so Annie and I parked the car and headed out to a destination I've wanted to see the entire trip, The Mormon Temple. Brigham Young choose the center of the city square for his temple and it took forty years to construct and this is where the LDS is headed. On our way to the Temple, a man asked us for a quarter, we quickly said no and headed on our way. Which was the opposite way he was going. Two blocks away and we saw him again. I had a weird feeling and we quickly walked into the courtyard surrounding the Temple where many people were milling and a peaceful feeling washed over me. The surrounding garden and fountains were very relaxing. My first thoughts looking at the Temple was, "I thought it be bigger" It is a little smaller than I expected but it really is a beautiful building. The Tabernacle where the famous choir is located is just next to it, but some of the men in suits were around talking to people and I didn't want to deal with that so I took a few pics of the temple and we left.


Of course it started raining when we were leaving, so that and the fact that Cheyenne is over 400 miles away we decided to crash in the surprisingly busy Evanston, Wyoming. My mission tomorrow is to find David's beer, b/c I fear coming home without it. Until next time. R

A few more pics

Here's some more pics I didn't have a chance to post....Lisa I know you and Michelle are wanting more pics!

The Lodge we stayed at in Colorado.

These next pics are of the pod that goes into the Arch in St. Louis, the first is the outside and the second is the seats and space on the inside, which isn't very much!!!


Center of St. Louis


Getting ready to hit the road




The Summit





Hey Wyatt,what do you think of my pictures?????


Well everybody's a critic! More soon, now it's off to Salt Lake City.

Truly Breahtaking

Day 5

Once we left the Grand Canyon we went through Vegas but didn't stay just ate and left. My thoughts on Vegas, it's dirty and I can tell it's not really my kind of joint. I can totally appreciate the great hotels and enjoyed seeing those. But I had more important places to be, California was calling.

The drive from Vegas to California was ROUGH it was 110 degrees and miserable. The scenery was beatiful through the mountains into California but before that all it was was dry desert with no life whatsoever expect for the crowded Highway full of people from California headed back home.

California is such a strange place. In the beginning all it was was joshua trees and sage brush then it turns into beautiful rolling hills full of wheat to farms of pecans and artichokes.

We stopped for the night in Pasa Robles, Ca. and ate at this really great restaurant with flat screen tvs in each booth. I can't remember the name but I will post it soon. We made an early night and got up early this morning. Our first stop was a tour of the vinyards surrounding the area...and something really strange happened. We saw a man using the bathroom on the side of the road. I hope they use a different fertilizer on the grapes!!!

The moment of truth, we reach Highway One in Cambria and I get my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. It was beautiful, the fog was hugging the coastline and it was a crisp 60 degrees.

All along the coast there were turnout points and I definitely took advantage of the great photo ops.

Pfieffer Beach in Big Sur was cold and windy but beautiful and it is definitely God's country. I even saw a sea lion on the beach, but I think she was hurt, no worries though, help came and hopefully she will be just fine.

Once we left Big Sur, it was on our way to San Francisco and Sacramento. I was still feeling fine and decided to press on to at least Reno. Everything was going great until Tahoe. Now the weather had been cool all day on the coast and even in San Francisco, but I was not ready for the rapid temperature drop to 32 degrees and the blizzard conditions on the road way, it was so scary and I didn't think we'd make it. But we did and now we're in Reno and I need to rest. More pics soon...we're headed home!

That Big Canyon sure is awesome!

Day 4

After we left the Colorado we were on our way to The Grand Canyon and Las Vegas but things got a little sidetracked so we stopped in Arizona about an hour outside of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The trip there was hot, yes but soo beautiful, I have never seen those colors in WV that I saw driving through Utah, Arizona and Nevada.

Still green
The terrain changed from greens and browns with temperatures in the 50's and 60's to Temps in the 100 + mark.
We drove through Utah for a bit and will be driving back through on our way back home.

We didn't do a whole lot on day four but drive and look at scenery. In case you were wondering about the food on the road it all depends on where you eat. In the mornings we eat the usual continental breakfast, but even I'm getting sick of the bagel, cream cheese and hard boiled egg routine. We did eat at a legit "road food" joint though, Ben's Cafe or something like that, it was terrible!!! The food was underseasoned and just not plain good and the service sucked too.

This was taken at a roadside stop we made, I climbed on top of a large rock and took these pictures of the valley below.

Once we reached Arizona, services got scarce. At one point there wasn't a service for about 60 miles!!!

Finally we reached the Grand Canyon, the park lies way back into the Kahbib National Forest and there is a fee of $25.00 week pass for the Grand Canyon National Park. There are tons of little cabins close to the rim, from what I've read these cabins are booked years in advance. I totally understand why, the views are unbeatable. I had so many expections of the Grand Canyon, it's something I've wanted to see my entire life. It did not disappoint. The shear magnitude of the canyon I cannot describe with a few photos. But I'm going to try


Tomorrow my # 1 Desination PCH 1 and Big Sur, CA.

From the mountains to the desert and everthing in between.

Day 3

I did not want to get up this morning, after two days with only 10 hours of sleep combined one gets a little tired, a little cranky, but I'm still loving this trip. This morning in Colorado the weather was cold...i mean like 50 degree cold, but it was worth it. The Rocky Mountains were magnificent,We breathtakingly beautiful and every other adjective that I can think of to describe them. We had hope to be in Vegas tonight, but that didn't happen, but since we are not on a schedule it's all good. Oh and we had our first road food today....It wasn't that great, but it's all about the experience right??? HMMMM.....A picture is worth a thousand words so here's a few shots we took today from Colorado to Utah and now in Arizona. Tomorrow The Grand Canyon, Vegas and maybe even California.

Sorry everyone....here's the pics of the Rocky Mountains

Pic outside of our hotel in Golden Co (right outside of Denver)

At a lake in the mountains...can't remember which one????

Me

Kansas and Colorado....so close but yet so far.

Day 2

Day 2 of the trip I knew was going to be a much longer drive that's why I slept and made Annie drive most of the way...LOL, just kidding. Friday night a large storm forced us to get a hotel for the night in Missouri about halfway between St. Louis and Kansas City. The storm was really bad and Annie's boyfriend told her that the same storm we were in caused three tornados in Iowa....yikes! So anyway we got on the road around Saturday morning I think around 9:30-10 that's after we slept through the alarm clock, showered, repacked, etc. The one thing I hate about this trip is repacking everyday....it sucks!!!!! I fell asleep somewhere right before Kansas City and missed the Chiefs stadium, but Annie said it was neat...thanks annie! We didn't stop in Kansas City just passed through and the same with Topeka.

Now for the record I was really worried about the dullness of Kansas, but it really was quite lovely the clouds there are magnificent.
Another word i can use is
Green. Kansas is very green but I liked it and will never again make fun of Kansas.

We ate "Linner" at a place called Montana Mikes about 100 miles from Colorado. The food was good, I had the buffalo burger and this really great onion rings.

Day 2's gas comsumption went through the roof with lead foot Brucker and we only managed a meager 350 mi. for that tank, but on the next fillup I drove and we've gone well past that with quite a few miles on this tank left to go
Colorado....I missed the Welcome to Wild Colorful Colorado Sign so I apologize because that sign is really something. Note that the farther West we came the cooler it is becoming, by the time we made it to Colorado it was barely 70 degrees. At first I wasn't too impressed with Colorado, but the closer we got to Denver the more impressed I became, the city emerges from the mountains and you can't not believe the size...St. Louis wants to grow up one day and be just like Denver. Things apparentl y went too smoothly the FIRST time through so we did it again. But not on purpose. A thunder storm began and I was still wearing my contacts, I told Annie that I would get off at the next exit and put my glasses on , well we got drinks at Sonic , put my contacts in and it started pouring...well I went down a one way street and thankfully ended up not killing us or anyone else. We got back on the right track, or so I thought....somehow I got onto a freeway that looped Denver and actually took over to Littleton, Co. Also, the road we were on was a toll road and $4.75 later we were back on I-70W but this time we were stuck in a major traffic jam and were diverted off the interstate into Denver...I have no idea where, by the grace of God though we made it back on to I-70 and just like deja-vu we say Denver AGAIN. Starting up into the mountains seemed a little dumb so we stopped at a Quality Inn in Golden Co. for the night. More pictures later today, because we are headed to
Arches National Park and the Grand Canyon.