Can I tell you a secret?

I have a love of waterfalls.

Growing up I was such an indoors kid. I did swim team in the summer but that was about as outdoorsy as I got.

As an adult, I am making up for it! I enjoy hiking, stand up paddleboarding, camping, and swimming (even with the fish).

Needless-to-say, this was a treat.

Growing up in Southern Illinois, I never knew places as beautiful as this existed eighty miles from where I lived. Heck, if we went that far south it was to go to the mall in Marion (which, by the way, is in a sad, sad state at the moment) or Carbondale.

No matter if you are a friend from my childhood, just happened to stumble upon my blog and live in Southern Illinois, or are planning a trip to that area- welcome!

Be sure to take the next Southern exit (before or after) exit 36- Lick Creek Road. Hippie Hollow is off Regent Road. Take a right off the exit and then the next right after that.

Hoping next summer to camp out here for the night!

I grew up knowing I was a bit different. I crave adventure and excitement.

One of the reasons I got married at a young age was probably that adventure and excitement. You know what though? I knew that my husband was no different than I was.

It’s not a wonder then that when my husband was researching our Route 66 trip from Dallas (not on the Route, but that was Day 0) to LA and he found Two Guns we had to go visit.

And, yes, our kids objected. One even refused to get out of the car because she was afraid a ghost would get her.

It was in the middle of the day!

Given the history though, I can’t blame her.

The address itself now sits within Winslow, Arizona territory because when the original owners of the land applied for a zip code they were denied. Really, though, we need to start at the beginning.

In 1878, the Apache attacked a Navajo encampment killing everyone but three girls who were taken into captivity. Naturally, the chief was upset and sent his men to find them. They found the Apache’s in a cave because of the smoke to cook and keep warm.

The Navajo men went back to their chief who sent them with more men to attack. The men used sage bush and driftwood to start a fire at the front end of the cave. The Apache men begged for mercy and were going to be spared until the Navajo asked about the girls they kept. After hesitation, the Apache understood the girls were murdered. Therefore, they shot the men and then used the ammunition to shoot into the fire, causing the flames to get worse and the men inside the cave died as well.

The two set of indians never fought again and both have warned that the cave and surrounding land was cursed.

Naturally, the story doesn’t end there though. In 1922, Louis and Earle Cundiff purchased 320 acres around the cave and put in a gas station for travelers along the Sante Fe Highway (which would eventually become Route 66 and then I-40).

Stopping there, Henry Miller saw the potential in the area and rented the space from the Cundiffs. He created a zoo, a restaurant, and tours into the cave where the Indians had passed. He had cleared it out and started selling the skulls as well.

Naturally problems arose from here. After an argument in 1926, Miller killed Earle. After getting out of prison he continued to live there but was hostile to the customers.

His building burned down in 1929.

Louise and her new husband continued to live there and run the place, rebuilding the burnt down place. It grew given the new Route 66 and in 1950 they sold it.

The new owners built an improved gas station and the KOA campground came in (hookups are still there by the way); however, the station burned down in 1971 and has been abandoned since then.

Here’s a video of our journey:

Sources of information include:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/two-guns

https://www.abandonedspaces.com/towns/two-guns-arizona-cursed-ghost-town-full-of-history-and-mystery.html

I took a break for a few days from the vidcon posts to do some other posts. I’m still hoping for some balance but we are stuck with travel posts for a while. Such is life!

Anyways, VidCon day 2 was just as epic, if not more so, than day 1.

We knew to leave a little later and decided to do the Hollister’s booth outside before going in. Veah and I had to stand on one foot while eating a fruit by the foot (video below and on youtube) and Bre had to put a swedish on her forehead and get it to her mouth while playing a ukulele.

They had this really awesome 3D picture area right outside of their activity booth. Of course, the girls had to get a picture!

Afterwards we went inside where Veah got to talking to another Animal Jam fan, only to find out it was Snowy Claw (a Jambassador)!

Here’s a picture of her with Snowy Claw and Bepper.

Since it was still early, we decided to hit up the Beast. It comes by it’s name naturally as it is the largest inflatable obstacle course in the world. To say that it was killer is a bit of an understatement. At one point I genuinely didn’t think I was going to get through it.

It reminded me how much I need to get into shape!

What do you do when you need to get into shape? You go get ice cream!

This ice cream was special though because it reminded me of my childhood when my mom would take me to the ice cream stand after swim practice.

The stand sold this kind of ice cream. The girls got cotton candy flavored and I got mocha!

Afterwards, we headed back to the AJ booth where Veah met Bepper’s brother Appari as well at Sethyy.

Little did I know the best was yet to come!

After leaving the Animal Jam booth, we went over to the Cheez booth where Bre sang “A Million Dreams”, Veah and I sang, “The Greatest Show”.

Somebody got a video of that.

Scary.

Then the girls decided they wanted to go to the Mars Candy Booth- which had a little community inside the show room. I happened to find the best part of the community- the coffee shop, where Twix was shelling out small (but yet not enough to keep you begging) espressos with our picture on it!

Seriously- that’s so cool!

I went to a class after that on YouTubing for families and the girls headed over to the Hasbro booth to play their games in order to spin the wheel at the end.

Even after I got back though, the girls were only two games into five games.

Knowing that this was our only night with daddy, I told them we would come back there first thing Saturday morning.

We were headed to dinner…

P.S. Want to see it live? Check it out here:

Being able to learn on vacation makes it a bit more fun for me and my family.

We spent an hour or so learning about Two Guns, Arizona after we left the first time.

Roswell, New Mexico has been entitled “America’s most famous brush with Aliens”.

For those of you who are in the blue about Roswell, like I was, many people out there believes it is a US Government cover up.

The UFO museum, and I, want you to decide for yourself. Here are the details:

• On July 7, 1947 William Brazel found a weird substance at his house. So he drove the seventy-five miles south to Roswell in order to tell the Sheriff. The Sheriff took this information to the United States Army Airforce (a precursor to the airforce).
• On July 8, 1947 First Lieutenant Walter Hunt told the media that they had found a “flying disk” on the site at Brazel’s ranch.
• The next day, General Roger Ramey changed the tune for the government, stating it was a weather balloon with the code name Project Mogul.
• Later, in the 1990s, the government released the paperwork from Project Mogul where they talked about anthropomorphic test dummies. This caused more people to believe in the conspiracy theory.
• Several people talked about an item that looked like aluminum foil. When crumpled and dropped though, it would straighten out. According to one witness, it didn’t have any texture and felt like air.
• My favorite part of the tour was the talk of the nurse: Glenn Dennis was asked to bring in three child sized caskets. When he started asking around, a nurse met with him at a bar and described the aliens to him, stating that they were alive. The next day, she had left Roswell and the government told him she had died on a plane headed for England.
• According to one source, she might have still lived in Roswell and Dennis did as he promised and never told her name.

No matter what, we do know that SOMETHING happened that day and the days to follow in Roswell. It was fun to see and learn! Besides- how can you resist this alien face?

At a minimum I go back to my second hometown of Dyersburg, Tennessee at least twice a year (Christmas and summer). While there I absolutely must stop at Java Cafe and get a dirty snowman.

This coffee drink comes with white chocolate and toffee nut flavoring that just has not been perfected elsewhere. I can go in and request it at another coffee shop but it doesn’t turn out the same and, believe me, it’s perfect in hot or frappe form.

Sitting at the corner of a busy shopping center, Java Cafe also has a delicious Frickin’ chicken sandwich. This sandwich comes with fried pickles on it. Back when we lived in Dyersburg if I wanted lunch out I would treat myself to this and a Jones soda.

On rare occasions I would also treat my girls, separately, to homemade ice cream for “mommy-daughter” time. Here is a picture of our now teenager (okay, okay, in five days) back when she still liked dresses:

Sometimes when we come back home I arrange a meet up for that little pumpkin above and her kindergarten best friend to meet up. It’s a special place for us.

The ambiance of the place is perfect too- with a fireplace across from the ordering counter that has nice leather chairs and plenty of seating area more traditional to coffee shops. Lots of light looking in and you can watch the cars go by through town.

If you are ever in Dyersburg, Tennessee be sure to check out Java Cafe- you will not be disappointed. Though- I can’t say much for any other drink except their dirty snowman (Veah is “forcing” me to get the salty snowman later this month though).

AND the owner has another coffeeshop in Jackson, Tennessee which is conveniently located in Jackson, off of I-40 going from Memphis to Nashville (or vise versa) named Green Frog. For non-Dyersburg natives, this maybe the easier way to taste the dirty snowman.

Just don’t forget your cookie.

While we were at VidCon, hubs got a chance to tour Los Angeles. Which was a benefit to the girls and me who only got the day after VidCon to check it all out.

It doesn’t take much for me to geek out and I took a lot of pictures along the journey, including a picture of downtown from the interstate:

And the art work was pretty awesome too:

The first thing he took us to was the Hollywood Walk of fame. We didn’t realize how long the walk was and did not get to see everyone’s star (including Shirley Temples) but we did get a few important ones including Mickey Mouse, Melissa Gilbert, and:

Walt Disney.

By the time we got to the Chinese theatre, it was super crowded and not very fun. I think this was because we went on a weekend.

Veah decided that while Anaheim is a good place to live, Hollywood is not her thing. Too crowded.

Next up, hubs took us to where the famous people live and Rodeo Drive. The girls fell asleep along the way and I only got a picture of a really nice park area:

I must say, this area was the only area that didn’t have a lot of trash in LA (Anaheim didn’t have much either).

Then we went to lunch at Trejo’s Tacos, which we’ll talk about in another post.

After we were full and the girls were bright-eyed and bushy tailed, we headed to the Hollywood Sign Park and Runyon Cannon.

For much of those drives, I felt like we were back at Pike’s Peak in Colorado.

From here, we went to Santa Monica Pier but it was too crowded and we couldn’t find a spot. Then up to Malibu, which I will talk about in another post.

Be sure to keep watching!

Trejos Tacos was on my husband’s list of places he wanted to eat while we were in California. On Day 2 of VidCon, he had planned to meet us at our hotel in Anaheim around five pm so we could head out to the nearest one.

He under-estimated LA traffic.

Hey, give the man props- he drives in Dallas traffic all the time. According to USA Today, he will spend fifty-four hours in traffic this year while he would almost double that (106 hours) if we lived there.

Back to Trejos though.

We ate good dinner that Friday and on Sunday while we were touring Hollywood he said, “Hey, see where the nearest Trejo’s Tacos is.” I obliged and within fifteen minutes we were at the La Brea location.

Interestingly enough, the location has very little indoor seating. This seems perfectly legit to me though because LA has such beautiful weather, why would you want to be inside anyways.

The only problem with this is the line can be pretty long, especially since only the customer who is getting their order taken is allowed inside the building. While this didn’t bother me, it may bother others.

I had the cheeseburger burrito, B also had a burrito and the girls each got a Chicken Quesadilla. After drinks, the total was sixty-one dollars.

A couple of things to note though before your eyes bulge out of your head (yes, I see you over there). One, drinks in California are where they stick you. My Topo Chico, which can be bought at Walmart for sixty cents, cost us four dollars.

And it wasn’t even lime flavored. Well, at least it wasn’t until hubs put a lime in it. MMMMmmmmm…. so much better.

Two- I also went back for a Cochata because I hadn’t had much coffee that day and when in Rome, right?

I think the coffee portion of it was good, it was the horchata part I didn’t like. Which is sad because I love horchata. I just hadn’t ever had it sweetened with dates. If you are trying to be health conscious- this is a good drink to get.

All-in-all I’d give it a three-star rating (out of four).

Have you been? Tell me about your experience.

Want me to review a specific restaurant? Tell me in the comments below!

Here we are- down to the last day of VidCon. If you’ve missed the other two days, check them out here:

Day 1

Day 2

The day started out with the girls finishing up their trip to the Hasbro booth in order to spin the wheel. First thing on my mind was getting coffee, of course.

I am still just amazed at these little cups. Thank you so much to Mars candy for providing this to a much needed sleepy momma!

After sneaking my coffee in, I came over to watch the girls unpack their Lost Kitties and Veah to stress Bre out (for a game…).

Once they completed those two missions, we were able to take them to the wheel where Veah won a smaller prize and Bre won a GAME!!!!

We were so excited about that. When we get back from Tennessee, we plan to do a video on the game.

We kind of all ran around everywhere during the day.

I went to a session on Family Vlogging in which I learned that one of the families on the panel had done a vlog every single day for five years before they went to three times a week! I hope I have that kind of stamina. Right now I’m just trying to get my blog to 365 (after three years of owning it but, hey, this post marks me twenty-nine away and I’m writing out of order soooo….).

While at this event, I told the girls to go to the AJ booth or the Nickelodeon booth where Jojo Sewa was supposed to be live. My silly girls had great seats to see her thirty minutes before the show but got bored and left, therefore, losing their spot. Needless to say, I found them at the AJ booth.

Once I got there, they begged me to go back to the Beast and I said not a problem, though, this time I was NOT going with them.

Afterward, we went back to the hotel for a couple of hours.

Upon arriving back at the convention center at 5, Veah headed to her “women in gaming” class while Bre and I went to Night of Awesome, getting to see the tail end of Jojo’s performance. Sadly, Veah’s event ended before the Night of Awesome and we missed out on seeing Miranda Sings (who by the way- is HILARIOUS). We did get to see that Thomas guy, you know, “Story Time” vine guy…

We got pizza though, so that kind of made up for it, right? Plus, we all got a ton of great goodies as people were taking down their booths.

Veah ended up getting her game after all, while Bre and I got another set of Lost Kitties. So, pizza and discussion of the loot we had gotten before I told them that we had to find something to do for the several hours between then and our last event.

The ultimate decision was to go to Downtown Disney. The girls and I were in so much awe that we hardly got any photos, though we did find out that we could have taken a shortcut through the Grand Californian. *Face Palm*

This was one of the only pictures I did take:

Being that I adore pinup style clothing and they had a whole store dedicated to Adult Disney fashion such as this- I was in my form of Heaven.

That was our first taste of Disney and I cannot wait to go back and experience the magic first hand with passes.

We were exhausted- physically and mentally by this point and none of us felt like going all out at “prom” so we stayed for forty-five minutes or so before walking back to our hotel room

Thankfully, we picked the best time to walk back as we the fireworks at Disney were going off at that time. I leaned in and told Nevaeh, “That’s why he’s the leader, man, we should make him the president.”

I’m grateful she get’s my sense of humor.

And I cannot wait to go back to VidCon in 2019!

I’ve told you that my husband planned out most of the trip. It was no surprise, then, when we went to spots from the original Fast and Furious movie.

The day we came to LA, we went to the airport where they filmed one scene (Barstow, I believe).

On our last day, we went to Neptune’s Net which has been a part of several different movies including Point Break, The Hills, and, you guessed it, the Fast and the Furious.

If you don’t remember this scene, here’s a review:

Which leads to this scene:

This restaurant is north of Malibu (which tickled me because of another movie from my teenage years- anybody remember Malibu’s Most Wanted?) and across the street from a very popular surfing spot.

Given that it was a weekend, the restaurant was busy so we couldn’t sit in the same spot as the movie, we sat closer to the ordering area.

I just love my husband’s outfit. He’s so suave.

Anyways, we had just recently eaten at Trejo’s Tacos so we weren’t super hungry. Not to mention my husband is not much of a seafood eater.

Neptune’s Net has a wide variety of food and the clam chowder looks delicious; however, given the two scenarios, we opted for fish and shrimp.

The food was good and our oldest (Veah) was excited because she got some Hubert’s Lemonade which is her new favorite.

We were especially thrilled that there was vinegar for the fries. Which means the watered down portion you see on the tray is actually vinegar.

The only disappointing part for me was the coleslaw. It would have been okay except it was warm.

We do plan to go back because B said there is a grocery store side of things as well and I want to try more of the food. He can get a hamburger or something without seafood in it next time.

Hopefully, we can spend more time looking at the surfers too.

I’d give Neptune’s Net a three out of four stars.

This is a current picture of my pin collection. You see the BlogHer 15 badge in the upper left hand corner? That was the one that started it all. These buttons are so special because they represent places I have been. Including:

• Several of the ones on the front are from Vidcon this past year, including Hubert’s Lemonade pin, the Rarest pin (Animal Jam- the whole reason we went), the Vidcon pin (go figure), and the Mickey Mouse pin was picked up at the Grand Californian hotel.
• The Big Texan Steakhouse was picked up on our trip to Colorado in 2016.
• The “Eat Real Food” pin is super special to me because an employee at Whole Foods Market gave it to me after I told her I loved the pin. I wasn’t asking for it but Thanks!
• The Dollywood Pin. We went there in 2017. How did I not write about that? This must change! I’m excited that they are building a new section as well. It’s a great place.

I need to change the location for my pins though because they easily get lost. Here is what I think I am going to do with them:

Framing a cork board and adding them there. It’s a much safer place for them to be.  

All I know is my pin collection makes me happy when I get down about the places I haven’t gone yet. I can think, “Look at the places I’ve been”! 

Is there anything in your life like that?