Chik-fil-A killed my Travel Buddy

Okay that is a lie!

However, yesterday I had to say goodbye to my best summer traveling partner. Up to that point he had been with me everywhere this summer; Fiji, Texas, Canada, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Arizona to name a few.

But in order for me to sign my contract for my new job I had to say goodbye. It was a very bittersweet moment. 

Goodbye gross nastiest...You kept my face warm.

Until next summer.

Breakfast at Cora's

The second day in Airdrie (this is a suburb north of Calgary) we biked to Cora's for breakfast. It is a nice breakfast spot. It is one of those places that opens at 6 a.m. and is closed by 3 p.m. This means that breakfast is their specialty. I ordered the cinnamon raisin french toast breakfast. It came with two eggs, two strips of bacon, and a mound of fruit. They defiantly don't skimp on the amount of fruit they give you, unlike the breakfast chain IHOP and Denny's. The fruit is also fresh and does taste gross and mushy. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Bald Heads

The fruit was great, but everything else was just ordinary. I give it a 3.5 for the generous portion of fruit, and every item in the breakfast tasted fresh, homemade, and cooked to order. These characteristics raised the rating a half bald head or so.

Also, when we were leaving to pay a gentleman who looked like the General Manager walked up to me as I was waiting at the cash register. He had one of those weird, creepy, too happy smiles. He looked at me and asked if he could help me. (I would have thought standing at the cash register with my receipt would have been an obvious clue, but apparently not). Then I explained I needed to pay and he smile nodded and then walked pass me out of the restaurant. 

To add to the weirdness, after I paid we went to the dollar store to buy Canadian Candies that I could sample throughout the trip. After I walked into the dollar store I turn down the candy isle and BOOM...there is the same guy. He turned, saw me and gave me the same creepy smile and said Hello. (Just picture a creepy dude with his head tilted slightly). It was really weird and from that time forward I was nervous that he was going to be popping out of everywhere throughout the duration of my trip.

Canadian are weird. EH!

Trip to Canada...cleaning the airport?

I recently returned from a three-week trip to Canada. It was to spend some time with a friend from my mission, and to see his stomping grounds. I have A LOT of food places to blog about, but I will start with one of the more odd experiences I have had this summer. The first Friday I was in Canada I was volunteered to help my friend's dad clean the carpets at the Calgary airport. It was an interesting experience and another random thing to add to the "completed" side of my bucket list. 

Here is my badge...

and a picture of me with the machine I pushed for 6 hours around as we cleaned 8 air bridges.

It was a fun experience and another item to add to the randomness list of my life.

Randomness of Life

For those who don't know I am 1) a social media junkie, 2) a couchsurfing supporter, and 3) enjoy spontaneous randomness. That being said I was able to satisfy all three of these thing this past weekend.  I was on Facebook and noticed a news article about two cancer survivors who are driving around America shooting a documentary about the fact that there is life after cancer. 

You can read that article Here

After I read the article I immediately wrote on their Facebook page to offer my support, and before I knew it was hosting them at my house for Friday and Saturday. They interviewed my for about an hour and a half for their documentary and I took them hiking and showed them around the beautiful state that is Utah. It was a great opportunity and I am glad I was able to meet both Evan and Eli. 

Now for the older guy in the middle of the photo. He was a freelance photographer who took pictures of all three of us throughout the interview and as we "hung out" to run a story of their traveling for the Chicago Tribune. Overall it was a fun experience. 

The highlight of the trip was watching the Opening Ceremony for the London Olympics. It was fun to share that experience with them and a few other friends. The highlight being when Sir Paul McCartney had everyone singing Hey Jude. The entire house was singing and sharing the moment together. 

It is truly an Olympic ceremony that I will always remember!

Trying to be more healthy...We will see how long it lasts

I am trying to be more healthy...I know all my traveling and eating might seem like I am doing the complete opposite, but since my birthday (June 23)...I have not consumed any soda. It is my first step of cutting out sugar and other unhealthy stuff that I eat (Apparently cancer loves sugar...so that means I should consume less). Once again, I am at the beginning of this process so all the unhealthy food I have eaten during my travels will still be blogged about.

However, I also am trying to "Go Green." You all know about this movement of using more organic/natural products..reducing one's own carbon footprint. This being said I decided to try this new toothpaste called Revitin.

I have used it only once so far, but I liked that it was not an overpowering of minty flavor like most toothpastes. It is a nice citrus flavor (It reminds me of some citrus flavored chewing gum). Anywho, it is an all natural toothpaste. 

If any of you have ideas of awesome "Go Green" products that I should introduce into my life...let me know buy commenting or emailing me. I am always open to suggestions. 

I will also be posting about my recent three-week trip to Canada. I am just spending today doing laundry, catching up on work and life, and letting my body reboot.

Thanks for reading...

Boy Scouts and Whataburger

On the last day of the baseball trip we went back to Good 2 go Taco, because it was that amazing. 

Then we I let my father indulge in his guilty pleasure...Boy Scouts! We went to the National Scouting Museum. It was actually a very impressive museum. It was very well done and looks like a lot of money went into the building of it. It was cool to learn a little bit of the history of boys scouts, and now when my dad goes to his next scouting meeting we will be the "cool" guy.






Then we stopped by our last meal before heading to the airport. We stopped at WHATABURGER. This is just a chain fast-food joint, but since we were there we needed to try it.  We split a cheeseburger, patty melt, onion rings, and french fries.

It was a run of the mill fast-food burger. The rating will be in contents of fast-food items and not food as a whole.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Bald Heads

It was a nothing special, but not disgusting fast-food hamburger.

That is all for the baseball trip to Texas. The next several blog post will be about my three week trip to Calgary, Alberta CANADA!

JFK and hamburgers

In Dallas we ate lunch at this Chop House Burger joint in Arlington Texas. I found it on the Diners, Drive-ins, and dives list. (this is one of the first places I look when researching for good places to eat)

This place was located in a kinda run down strip mall. You would never think to stop there without the help of DDD. 

  I ordered their signature Chop House Burger. Char grilled ground beef and slow roasted brisket mixed , house made steak sauce, apple wood bacon and smoked cheddar cheese on a butter toasted bun. It was a decent burger, not my favorite or life changing, but it is a step up of any fast food restaurant. It was a good variation from the normal hamburger because of the brisket that is mixed in with it.
However, the onion rings were pretty awesome! They did not un-seed my favorite onion rings of all time, but it defiantly found a place in the top 5.


Rating: Hamburger  3.5 out of 5 bald heads......Onion rings get a 4.7 bald heads out of 5

During our time in Dallas we also visited the Book Depository....the building where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. Since I am a history junky (this was my major before I changed to communication, and so I just got a minor in history instead). It was interesting to take the self-guided tour with headphones and learned a lot about this crazy event in our nation's history. It was fun and I am glad I can cross that of my bucket list.

It is out of the window all the way to the right and second from top that the shot were fired that killed JFK riding down the street in the forefront.