Months back, Lara/hurtpiggypig created a female-only ITG and PIU tournament event to take place at her house. It was dubbed "Girlpocalypse". This year would be it's first (but not it's last!). No males, including her husband Matt or the significant others of female participants, were allowed and the event was invitation only with the total number of females invited being about 15 or so. Of course, I was one of the females invited but I didn't feel confident or ready at all when tournament time rolled around, especially without Sean being able to be there to support me. Sean and I did have some flight vouchers that needed using though so we decided to book a trip around the event so that I'd be able to stop in and at least say hi to the girls. It was a good excuse for me to take Sean to see Chicago for the first time and revisit the sights and my friends there as well. We didn't book a round trip though. Instead, we decided to take things up a notch and book a cool triangle, adding Florida into the mix as well!
Danny took us to the airport on the morning of our flight. The flight went smoothly. We landed in Chicago about half an hour early at 11:33am local time. We hung out at the airport for a bit trying to get the wifi there to work so we could contact some of our local friends but we didn't have any luck so we had a think while snacking on some food we brought and then decided to spend $10 for 2 train/subway tickets to downtown Chicago.
Downtown, we found a Starbucks and used wifi to get in touch with people and arrange weekend plans. Across the street from Starbucks was Dunkin Donuts. The employees there were SO nice, they offered free samples there, and they had a $0.99 iced coffee or tea promo going on at the time so we got more beverage than we knew what to do with for just over $1 each!
It was Sean's first time exploring Chicago, as he'd only been to the airport before, and I believe it was my first time looking around town during the day. In addition to the mix of modern skyscrapers, older ones with exquisitely beautiful architecture, and various brick and other buildings, we saw the Chicago River, witnessed a man proposing to a woman (she said yes!), walked over to the Chicago Tribune to see the bricks taken from various famous buildings and landmarks (my second time seeing the building but first time getting a good look), bought some spicy Cheez-Its from an old-looking ice cream van, tried to look in potential dance game places such as AMC theater and the adjacent FTW arcade (not yet open) and bowling place there but didn't have much luck seeing or getting in, visited Navy Pier for the first time (partially under construction) where we walked by the indoor and outdoor shops (pretty mediocre but cool to see) while taking in the sights of Lake Michigan and the city, fed birds, relaxed near the end of the pier for a bit, and walked to Millennium Park to see Chicago's famous silver bean (my second visit to it). Finally, after many fun but rough hours of toting our heavy luggage around while sight-seeing, we got the train back to the airport for $6 total for 2 people.
At the airport, we managed to get wifi to work just long enough to book a good deal on a Hertz rental car: $140 total for 4 days! That'd solve our transportation and even lodging problems, as long as we could sort the hygiene aspect, and keep us from having to tote heavy bags everywhere. They happened to give us a shiny little red car and before we knew it we were driving to the nearest Denny's to have our first real meal since Vegas.
Sean had a coupon for a free Grand Slam at Denny's so we used that, got a biscuits and gravy breakfast dish as well, and shared. Guess we were hungry because we actually finished it all! Only cost about $6.60 including tip though!
Having not slept much the past few nights and not at all the night prior, we were pretty tired after food. We found a good spot to park, laid the backseat down, and cuddled up to sleep in the trunk and over the backseat just before 3:30am.
Day 2 - 5/22/15:
We were pretty okay on space in the car but the part we were laying on was way harder than expected, the cold part of the night was really cold, and after that it got really hot. We got 9 hours of broken sleep though and woke up feeling pretty refreshed.
We needed to wash up, change clothes, and pee so we drove down the street a bit and happened to find a Brunswick bowling alley:
Brunswick Zone River Grove
3111 River Rd
River Grove, IL
Inside, we found a bowling alley with an ITG2 dedicab! We were pretty anxious to change into fresh clothes though so we got clean first and then shared a credit on the dedi. The 2P start button didn't work so we just traded on the 1P. Usbs didn't work either (didn't seem to be plugged in), the screen was horizontally squished with lines going across the top but didn't affect play too much, machine was unhacked r23 so officials only, timer was on, life difficulty was set to 2, it was $1 for 2 songs, and volume was ridiculously low but the pads were raised and 1P seemed good. Cool find anyway! Sean got to try a credit on some zombie game while we were there too! On the way out, I grabbed a cup of free coffee they had there and then we continued on!
Down the street, we found the first of many Aldi grocery stores we'd see in the area. Wow! We went in and spent $9.41 on cheap and yummy trip supplies.
Then we went to a nearby McDonald's for a cold drink and wifi.
Driving around, we spotted a deer munching grass near some trees off the side of the road.
Rivers Casino was nearby so we drove over. We'd seen a sign for it the day before and wanted to see what it was about but didn't find much of interest inside-no free play for new members, free drinks, or arcade. Lol
Though I had no intentions of entering the Girlpocalypse tournament as I didn't feel like my skills were where I wanted them to be and I REALLY didn't want to be without Sean, Lara eventually messaged me and said that if I'd enter and at least play one set she'd let me bring Sean along for it!! Wow. I finally, nervously agreed and she penciled me in for an 11:30pm set that night.
We didn't know what to do then but Lara messaged me to tell me everyone was going for sushi at a place called JC Sake near her house. It was about 40 minutes from us but they wouldn't be there til about the same time as us so we drove over. Inside, we found pretty much everyone from the tournament except those who hadn't yet arrived or who'd already played their sets and left. Lizzie's dad, Paul, and Lara's husband Matt/Mad Matt were there too! Paul had just come to hang out for the meal but the other two were at the house because Matt lives there and Lizzie isn't even an adult yet so it'd be hard for her to get around without her dad. Accordingly, Lara had decided to make an exception and let those select couple of guys as well as Sean be there, though Sean wouldn't be hanging out there much outside of my sets as Lara wanted the girls to have their girl thing and feel as comfortable as possible while there.
When we got to JC Sake, everyone was already seated at one of two tables. We got a big warm greeting when we walked in and spent quite awhile meeting all the dance game girls we didn't yet know (Amy Rosevine, Holly Davis, etc) and saying hi to everyone we did (Brittany from the UK, Lara, Matt, Paul, Lizzie, Lizzie's dad Eddie, Sara, etc). I shared a few goodies I'd brought for everyone and then we ordered. I wasn't hungry at all but I was feeling extremely nervous about my set so we ordered a bottle of sake as well as one California roll to share. By the end of things, I had a very nice mini buzz. Lol
After sushi, everyone went back to Lara and Matt's house except Paul, Lizzie, and Eddie. Paul said a temporary goodbye but we'd see him again at Round 1 when everyone went together the following night for one of the girls' scheduled public events. Lizzie and Eddie went with us to Target in the same parking lot so they could pick up some snacks. While there, we picked up some cookies and a bottle of wine.
Annoyingly, my period started during the day today so I was feeling a little weak and bleeding everywhere. I brought some tampons on the trip just in case but I wasn't expecting to need them for another week and a half or so so it came as a bit of an annoying surprise. Lol
From Target, we went to Lara's to drop Eddie and Lizzie off but it was then only a couple of hours til the start of my set so we stayed, met Matt and Lara's BIG doggies, saw their big and very incredible house and assortment of arcade dance games, bought an awesome tournament hoodie from the shirts and hoodies Lara had made for the tournament (only $20 for invited participants!), got to know some of the people we'd just met, and chatted with Matt and a few others about nerdy dance game things.
11:30 rolled around way too quickly for me but I guess I wouldn't ever have felt ready. On top of the tournament pressure and everyone in the room watching, there was a live stream being broadcast on Twitch that anyone in the dance game community could watch and lots of people were watching and commenting on. I got on the ITG pad feeling like my heart was gonna pop out of my chest and assuming I'd at most be able to pass a 16 or two near the start of my 90 minute set and would then have to move down to 15s and maybe 14s, possibly failing most of the stuff I attempted. On a bad day back home, that's more or less what tends to happen and given my lack of recent sleep, car sleep, bad nerves, start of my period, and the fact that I was playing on both a machine I hadn't played before and completely new theme (or game, similar to ITG but much different to use) for the first time, I was figuring it would DEFINITELY be one of those days. I'd underestimated just how bad our pads back home actually were, as we almost never fix or mod them, and how good Matt and Lara's could actually be. The arrow panels were flush with the metal parts of the pad so that I practically didn't have to lift my feet and getting the arrows to register was WAY easier than I'm used to. My timing is naturally really bad but the theme was extremely hard to get used to and my timing throughout my set was atrocious but it didn't matter much to me. I just play for stamina passes anyway. Haha My set had already started but I had NO IDEA how to use the machine so I spent the first 4 minutes or so having Matt summarize for me before I chose and started a song. I really didn't know what I could pass then but I figured if I started off too fast or hard I'd fail and if I started too easy I'd waste more of my set time as well as become too lazy to do anything harder afterwards. I finally decided on Still Grey (16, though the rating scale on that machine was way different than regular ITG and rated it some number I can't recall between 90 and 100). I had a really rough time with timing and reading the arrows during the song but I made it through and Matt helped me adjust my speed mod after, though I never quite adjusted my reading during my set. I did Lovelyteks (16) after that followed by four more 16s and five 17s (90somethings thru 105 by Matt's rating scale), getting kinda tired but surprisingly feeling fine and not failing anything! I finished with Snows, though it was cmodded, and was overall happy with my set, though I spent way too much time trying to find and pick songs and work out how to use the machine. 22 minutes of break time during my set, actually. Haha Luckily, Matt and Sean helped me a lot with finding songs and adjusting my speed mods, otherwise I would've spent even longer between songs and probably ended up playing a few easier things, underestimating my own abilities as well as having no idea what was in the pack to choose from.
I was really nervous to see where I ranked up against the other girls and wasn't sure I really wanted to find out but Matt showed us at the end of my set anyway and it turned out that I was currently 1st in stamina by far! I was 5th in speed, as I'd only done long and streamy songs during my set and had bad footspeed anyway, and 7th in timing, as I naturally have SHIT timing and also had trouble adjusting, but I didn't care. The awesome were pads had made me do wayyy better and pass way more than expected, though I didn't do any 18s, and I was happy with that! I maintained an average difficulty of 96 with an average score of 82.86 (lol timing), a total of 40,539 steps, average timing error of 16.9 ms, and total of 11 songs played and passed. Yay!
During my set, a lot of people were commenting both negatively and positively on the stream. I didn't see any of it but I heard about it a bit both then and later.
I was feeling really mellow after I'd finally finished my set and I was extremely sweaty and nasty. Sara had paid for a hotel room to for Eddie and Lizzie but there was a spare bed there so she insisted that we stay there for the night too. Wow, so generous! We'd housed her when she visited but the hotel was way nicer than our place! Anyway, Eddie was really tired then so Sean and I said goodnight to everyone who was still there and awake and took Eddie and Lizzie back to the hotel to sleep. We were hungry though and had a $5 White Castle gift card so after dropping them off we drove to the nearest White Castle, which they have plenty of in the area, and got $8 worth of food for $3 out of pocket! We got their new and tasty chicken, waffle, bacon slider things (2/$5) as well as 2 original sliders and a tea for Sean.
Then we got a drink at a BP gas station (also out herd!), went back to the hotel, showered, watched some Simpsons on Sean's laptop, and finally went to sleep around 4am in the most comfy bed ever!
Day 3 - 5/23/15
We woke up at 10:34am and got ready to check out. Then the 4 of us drove to Hardee's (Carl's Jr. on our side of the country) for breakfast. I was still too full from White Castle to eat but I enjoyed the convo and hanging out!
We drove back to Lara's then to drop Eddie and Lizzie off at the tournament. We went in for a quick moment so that I could borrow a can opener to open some evaporated milk I was dying to drink and ended up chatting with and saying hi to people there including Alex (who'd come during my set the night before), Pirin (who'd just arrived today), Brittany, Matt, Lara, and others who were hanging out upstairs for a few minutes.
Then we decided to drive to the Main Event family amusement place in the area to check it out and try the PIU Fiesta 2 there that people had mentioned to us over dinner the day before. Lara had some Main Event game cards she said she didn't use so when we told her we were going she gave them to use to use. Thank you, Lara!!
Main Event
28248 Diehl Rd
Warrenville, IL
I spent a couple of hours watching Sean beast and get sweaty to make up for him doing the same for me the night before and so I could type this up. Then I joined in and traded off songs over a few credits with him. Between us, I think we played there about 3.5 or 4 hours and still had tons of credits left on the cards which we, of course gave back to Lara later.
We were hungry then so we went to the car to eat Aldi foods and Target cookies. Then we started back to Lara's to watch Alex/figgies play her set! (She'd asked us to come back to watch and cheer her on and Lara said it was okay as long as she wanted us there. Also, her set was the last one before everyone headed to Round 1 so it made sense to meet there and head out from there.)
On the way to Lara's, we stopped at Aldi quickly and got an energy drink to share.
When we got to Lara's, they'd just ordered pizza delivery and almost everyone was eating and hanging out on the beautiful balcony with a nice view of the pretty, grassy yard! The pizza slices were SO big and thick and incredibly delicious-quite possibly the best I'd tasted. I was still too full to eat anything then but Sean had a slice and I had one later. Then we watched Alex beast her set, Sean and Matt played a couple of songs together for fun for the first time ever, and we all headed over to Round 1!
Round 1
152 Stratford Square
Bloomingdale, IL
Round 1 was SWARMING with dance game girls as well as tons of other dance and music game friends and people who'd been watching the tournament stream. So many people had come out to meet us all there! It was crazy! To name a few, Rivvy, Nikko, Paul, Brandon/Cosmic Pope, Nick/Windeu, Jordan, Jim/Aoreo, and even the dance game girl Rapunzel who I'd heard about but never before met were there! Rapunzel and her fiance even came and introduced themselves to us saying they used to follow me on itgfreak. They didn't even realize I'd heard of them at all! So many friends of friends and others we'd never met before were there and introduced themselves or got introduced to us one way or another. Almost as impressive as the huge number of music gamers there though was the ridiculous number of music games there! There were too many for me to remember or list but to name as many as I recall they had ReRave Plus, Hit The Beat, DrumMania (some new one called Gitadora, I believe), Guitar Freaks (also Gitadora, I think), Sound Voltex (I think that's a music game), some new version of Pop'n Music, some new IIDX, and, most importantly, two dance games: PIU Prime and PIU Fiesta 2!! No 4 panel or other dance games but still pretty badass! Sean and I traded off on a 4 song, $1.50 credit on the PIU Prime machine but were so distracted by friends we didn't play much else. We had an AMAZING time though! We hung out with a group by the bar and got a drink to share. Then we walked around a bit more, took A TON of pics on our phones, and finally took a ton more pics in the photo booths there with everyone. It was RIDICULOUS! At one point we even squeezed all the girls into one photo booth to try and take pics, which didn't work out well at all but was absolutely hilarious. I doubt there's ever been that many girls in a photo booth before! Jordan was busy working his skills on the crane games there and winning infinite San-X bears of which we ended up with two. Omg...My favorite bears ever!!! I couldn't believe how sweet and generous everyone had been! I had to return the favor so I went to the car and got the arrow necklaces I'd made arrows brought with me to pay everyone back for all they'd done. They all seemed to love the necklaces too so I was really happy to share!
Since I'd played my set, I'd had tons of people, both friends and strangers, come up to or message me to tell me how impressed and amazed they were and say that I'd absolutely killed it. I hadn't really posted scores in forever so no one really knew how I played anymore. No one had any idea what to expect from me when I went up. I didn't know what to expect either but I guess I got lucky and I was so flattered to hear the praise from people I didn't even know or didn't realize had even watched. It was such a welcome surprise and really motivated me to want to keep pushing!
Most people started saying goodnight and heading out at midnight. We finally decided to take off too so we said goodnight and left with Lizzie and Eddie. They'd arranged a place for us all to stay in Chicago with Holly Davis (one of the dance game girls) and Chris Hansen (her fiancé and dance game guy)! We couldn't believe it. Everyone was being so accommodating! Obviously, we'd have to pay them back too. :p Anyway, it was about a 40 minute drive to theirs and we had to pay a $1.50 toll on the way but of course it was totally worth the journey, especially since Sean and I wanted to get back into the city to explore Chicago for the next few days. On top of that, when we got to Holly and Chris' we found two super friendly and funny cats, a big doggie, and AN ITG2 DEDI all in their place! Wowwwww. So amazing! Holly, who we'd met at the dinner and seen at Lara's and such, was already asleep but Chris had stayed up to let us in. We thanked him very much and chatted with and got to know him a bit while playing with the cats. Great guy! :D Then he said goodnight and we all went to bed a little before 3am, Lizzie and Eddie on the couch and Sean and me on the floor with our feet touching the dedicab! Surprisingly, we were very comfortable. For some reason though, I was the only person who couldn't sleep at all and it close to 6am when I finally managed to knock out.
Day 4 - 5/24/15:
We woke up just after 10am. I was so tired but had been tossing and turning during the few hours I slept. Holly had already headed out for the day and Chris had to leave for work so we all showered, got ready, and headed out as well.
Eddie and Lizzie decided to hang with us but there wasn't much point in trying to take the car into downtown and find parking so instead we took a nice, somewhat long walk through the pretty neighborhoods there til we got to a train station. Then we all got $10/person day passes for the train and went exploring.
Our first stop was Chinatown. I needed the restroom so we went into the first place we saw there which happened to be a food court. The restrooms were for customers only but we bought a $2 can of Chinese herbal sweet tea, which turned out to be really good, from a restaurant there and I got to use the restroom. Lizzie and Eddie were hungry then and didn't care much for Asian food so they went off to find a McDonald's while Sean and I explored the kinda small touristy part of Chinatown. For the most part there, it seemed to be the usual deal you see in any Chinatown in any city but we found plenty of things to amuse us and keep us busy. We found a store with candy and other things for sale by the pound as well as in packages and they had free samples of tons of different things including dried veggies, dried fruits, dried sea creatures, and much more. We sampled a lot of various things there including yummy but kinda strange dried mushrooms and dried squid (always one of my favorites). In another store, we bought green tea mochi balls to share and they were really good. That same store, however, had some weeeiiiird things such as dried caterpillars and whole squid, I believe it was, TO EAT as well as small bags of ginseng for about $155! Wtf Most shops had typical souvenirs and other things we expected to see so we didn't go in a lot of them and it wasn't too long before we felt like we'd seen pretty much everything but after awhile Sean needed to use the restroom so we went back to where we'd started and got a can of Coke for $1 so he could. Lizzie and Eddie got back to us then and we hopped on the train again headed towards downtown.
I hadn't eaten yet so I was hungry when we got there. We saw a McDonald's and a Chik-fil-A right away but I wasn't in the mood. It wasn't long til we spotted a busy hot dog place called Downtown Dogs though and I knew we needed to try a Chicago dog in Chicago so we got in line! It wasn't long before it was our turn to order. There were a lot of hot dog and other food options but the employee there said the Downtown Dog, which was the name of one of their hot dogs, was THE Chicago dog so we got it with all the "fixins" for $4.09 including tax and shared! Aside from the toppings they put on it, it wasn't much different from a normal hot dog but it was good, especially with everything on!
It started raining around then. It didn't stop us but we did take shelter in nearby shops and buildings here and there. We went in a Hershey's store and a Ghiradelli store and got free chocolate samples (though I gave mine away because I'm not a big chocolate fan). Then we took a look at some cute horses and carriages there and had a peak in the publicly accessible bottom of Chicago's oldest building, the water tower, where we were surprised to see nothing but a semi-empty gallery. The rain got much worse then. Across the street, we took shelter in the Water Tower Place mall and did some window shopping. Once the rain had calmed a little, we walked down the road towards the Marvelous Mile shops for more window shopping.
Eventually, we made our way back thru the part of downtown Sean and I had visited the other day, approaching from the opposite direction and making our way to a Dunkin Donuts kinda near where he and I had gotten off the train and started exploring then. We got some drinks and snacks there and relaxed for a bit. Wifi didn't work there but the outlets did so we charged up a bit.
Then we got a train and a bus back to Chris and Holly's where Chris was ITGing at the time. (Holly was at the tournament.) We watched Chris play, recommended songs for him, stepped on a couple of arrows just to say we'd been on the machine, and chatted about ITG stuff for awhile. Then we watched the end of Alex's second set which was followed by the end of the girls' tournament on Twitch. We had no clue they'd be looking at and announcing results let alone giving out awards but at the end of it all Lara pulled out 3 trophies which she awarded to the winners of each of 3 ummm.."disciplines": footspeed, timing, and stamina! I had NO IDEA how the tournament worked or that I was actually considered a participant despite only playing 1 set and not taking it seriously at that. Pretty sure I was the only one who only did one set. I figured they'd add all the points for both sets together to get their totals and that I'd, accordingly, rank dead last in all 3 categories. I guess they just took the player's best performance in each category instead though? Very unexpected! Also unexpectedly, I'd gotten more points for stamina in my set than anyone else in any given set in the tournament. Wow! Maybe not everyone pushed for stamina? Either way, I was SO surprised when Lara came out with trophies and gave one to Steph for placing 1st in footspeed (I was 3rd of 13), another one to Brittany (UK, Team BBC!) for placing 1st in timing (I'd gotten 3rd from last aka 11th of 13. Hahaha Just being myself!), and finally one to me for placing 1st in stamina! Well, she couldn't give mine to me in person just yet but she held it out for me to see during the stream and gave it to me the next day!! So incredible.
After that wound down, we all got ready for bed. Holly got home before we fell asleep though so we greeted her and I thanked her and Chris with another ITG arrow necklace. They'd bought some in the past but I figured they could always use more!
Finally, just after that, we all crawled into our respective sleeping places around 2am and got some Zzzzz's! Personally, I didn't knock out til around 3am and didn't get enough sleep but I did get good sleep.
Day 5 - 5/25/15:
I woke up at 9am, still tired but ready to start the day. It took a couple of hours for us all to get ready but Lizzie, Eddie, Sean, and I finally headed out a little after 11am. Holly and Chris were going to meet up with us in the city a bit later when all the girls (at least those still in town) came out to meet everyone and sight-see.
We still had our day passes so we got the bus and train to downtown, getting off at the Quincy stop, I believe it's called, right by the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower. We went into a McDonald's for some caffeine and breakfast and then walked around for a bit while we waited for everyone. We ran into Holly and Chris first and the 6 of us went to a nearby pizza restaurant to get discounted tickets for the Willis Tower Sky Deck. (We'd found out they sold them there for $17 instead of the $20 charged at the tower itself plus we got to skip the ticket line at the tower!) Sean and I had a bottle of wine with us which we were told wouldn't be allowed up the tower so we ditched it in a nearby bush, hidden away enough that we could grab it after.
The girls group messaged then and said they'd arrived and were going up the tower. It was really busy in the tower though so we just got in line with our group and went up but managed to meet up with everyone else once we got to the Sky Deck observation area on the 103rd floor. While waiting for the other group up there, we got to enjoy some amazing views of the city! It wasn't long til everyone else caught up with us. I think there were around 15 or so of us in total then. We got in line together to go out on the glass floored area and look down on the city below our feet. Very cool! Got some awesome pics with everyone too!
On the way out of the tower, we stopped in the various Willis Tower gift shops and a room called an arcade that had photo booths and other fun things but no real games. We even got some fudge samples from a guy working in one of the gift shops. Yum!
Then it was wine time! I ran and grabbed our wine from the bush and enjoyed it with Sean throughout the rest of the day. We didn't even think about the fact we couldn't drink wine on the street there til we went to have our first sip but it didn't matter. We just hid the bottle in my backpack and took sneaky sips without taking it out. Lol
The group continued onward towards Millennium Park to see the bean, goofing off and taking tons of pics along the way. When we got there, Lara paused everyone for a moment so she could give me my 1st place stamina girls tournament trophy and everyone clapped! :'D Then we all took a billion pics with the bean and went to play and take more pics at a nearby kiddie park we were all way too big for!
Just before leaving the bean, Brittany had to say goodbye to head to the airport and Matt had to take her. Chris had already said his goodbye by then. A few others came and went throughout our adventures but we made the most of our time together and had way too much fun, all thanks to Lara and Matt who organized it all!
Everyone was getting hungry then so we walked over to Panera Bread next to get food and have a break. Sean and I got an asiago cheese bread wheel for a little under $4 and heated it up in their microwave. Very tasty!
Then we all went for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Well, we didn't all buy ice cream but we all went.
Just after that, Sean and I spotted the end of Historic Route 66!
We walked to the weird water feature/fountain play area near the bean and all hung out there for awhile, some of us playing in the water a bit and getting pretty moist and others just chatting and relaxing. Sean and I found an unopened beer there and shared it with Paul. Alcohol!
We all went to take pics in front of the Chicago theater then..and finally walked back to the parking garage Lara had parked with most of the group at to say goodbyes to the girls and other friends who'd come with them. :(
The final few of us made our way to the train station. Sean and I paid our last $6 to Chicago's public transit system this trip, got the train to the same stop as the day before, said goodbye to the few remaining people in our group, took the bus to the same stop as the day before, and went into a liquor and convenience store there for some drink and snacks. The weird chip things we bought ended up being some of the best snacks EVER! Really hope we find them again one day!
It was a short walk back to the car and we were on our way back to Hertz at the airport, stopping for food, gas, and snacks on the journey. We got some burritos, burgers, and chicken sandwiches at Walgreens to tide us over til mid day the next day. We got chips at 7 Eleven and used their microwave and condiments to make a couple of our burgers tasty so we could eat them immediately. (We were hungry!) Then we filled the tank with $15 worth of gas at BP and got the car back to Hertz.
With our stuff all reorganized and repacked, we hunted for a spot in the airport to set up camp and get some rest. (It was a lot cheaper to return the car then than in the morning and the only difference for us was where we slept so we were fine getting to the airport early and spending the night.) We finally found our spot in the baggage claim area underneath some escalators. We got as cozy as possible on a cold, hard floor and pulled out the laptop and snacks to spend a good while watching Simpsons and being fat. Lol Sean started falling asleep on me though so I finally decided to try and join him around 3:30am. It didn't work well at all but I managed to get a few hours of broken sleep throughout the night.
Day 6 - 5/26/15:
We finally got up at 8:45am. Our next flight was to Orlando at 10:40am. We'd accumulated a lot of stuff in Chicago so I decided to use my United Mileage Plus free checked bag benefit to get rid of one of the bags I was tired of carrying. Then we made our way to our gate, waited a bit, boarded, and we were off to Orlando for Sean's first time ever!
I tried some tomato juice during the flight. It was alright but I didn't particularly care for it.
We hadn't had a chance to plan anything for our Orlando visit but luckily the airport had free wifi so after we landed we spent a lot of the afternoon and evening chilling in a comfy area there and researching everything from things to do to rental car prices. We sorta made a rough itinerary and got a 3 day rental car reservation through Hotwire.com with a car rental company called Payless. t was the same low price for small/"economy" cars or midsized vehicles so we took the midsized option. More room for no fee other than maybe a little more gas. :) In total, we paid about $63 for the 3 day rental car plus gas but Payless had a cool policy where you just return the car empty and they fuel it themselves FOR CHEAPER than outside gas prices: $2.15/gallon instead of about $2.45/gallon outside of there! Deal.
We were hungry and desperately in need of caffeine then so we drove to the nearest McDonald's where we found a pretty gazebo inside and an awesome tiki hut theme inside. In the menu, they had a few things we don't have back home including mini bundt cakes and mozzarella sticks. We had to try the mozzarella sticks and I had to have an Oreo frappé, which was AMAZINGLY delicious, so we got those as well as a tea for Sean and soda to share.
I needed tampons and we needed cash back so we went to Walmart next to sort that out. Then we got another small bite to eat at a nearby 7 Eleven and got in touch with a group of friends that was in the area: Steven Lo, Matt LaGreca, Christal, and Ryan/Rynker. The DDR Storm tournament had just passed a few days prior, during the girls tournament, so the non-locals of them were in town for that, hanging with the locals and doing post tournament things. (Christal had entered the girls tourney but had played her sets early so they could come down for Storm.)
Knowing the area better than us, they suggested a gaming bar called Cloak & Blaster and we headed over to meet them. It was around 11pm when we arrived and the place was closing an hour but we had time for a few quick drinks! The place was not what I expected but it was pretty cool with board games downstairs and console games and couches upstairs. The upstairs area had just closed for the night when we arrived but we didn't need it to entertain ourselves. We just grabbed a table together downstairs and chatted about dance games and other nerdy things over drinks!
The group headed back to Steven's after that but we had exploring to do so we said goodnight and headed to an area I'd never taken a close look at or maybe even seen before: downtown Orlando! We were surprised to find that parking was still really hard to find at 1am on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning but we struggled for probably close to half an hour. Once parked, we got out to walk the main area there, which had some sky scrapers and was plenty city-like but wasn't super huge. It didn't take us too long to get a feel for things there and feel like we'd pretty much seen all we needed to. The area was oddly very busy, like a Friday or Saturday night in most big cities, though it died out over the next couple of hours and was dead by the time we finally left the area. The people there were super ghetto and predominantly consisted of the kind of black people you don't want to meet alone in an alley. That's not me stereotyping either. We kept finding ourselves alone near them and honestly had them approaching us to take our shit. I'm the type to always think the best of people but seriously.. There were bicycle cops and cop cars everywhere too, many just standing around in groups and watching the people near the bars to make sure all hell didn't break loose. Of course, I'm sure time of night was a factor. There were a lot of bars there, plenty of 7 Elevens, hot dog stands, and pizza places. There wasn't much else open or much else in general other than the sky scrapers there. Don't get me wrong though, we had a great time looking around! I was always curious what to expect and it was nothing like I'd thought it might be.
We went in one of the 7 Elevens for drinks and wound up getting a bag of bacon cheddar peanuts as well. Didn't know what to expect but they were pretty tasty and actually tasted like bacon and cheddar.
Just a very short walk from central downtown was a lake called Lake Eola where they rent out little boats that look like swans for people to take around the lake. So pretty and so cool! We really liked the lake area so we spent a long time there, walking all the way around it and taking a ton of pics. There were a lot of swans, ducks, and other birds there too and they were all so used to humans they let us get pretty close before running off. There was bird food for sale in quarter machines there too so we got to feed them a bit and even pet a few of them! I even held a couple of ducks for a minute! Some of the birds kept hissing or biting at us but if was really cute and funny. The lake was full of mini fish and we spotted one turtle as well. Cute!
We were really hungry and sleepy after leaving the lake so we drove to a Denny's for food, ate, and then went to the "car" (more like a mini van) to sleep a little after 6am. O_O
Day 7 - 5/27/15:
We woke up around 1:30pm and drove down International Dr towards something I'd seen years ago and had been dying to show Sean: the PIU Pro machine inside the world's largest entertainment McDonald's!
McDonald's
6875 W Sand Lake Rd
Orlando, FL
Inside McDonald's, the PIU Pro had been moved to the upstairs arcade area but they still had it! They still had a Guitar Hero machine too as well as a UFO Stomper, some Percussion Master related drum game called Jungle Drummer, and lots of non-music games. We'd picked up a coupon somewhere for a free personal pizza with any "gourmet bistro" purchase at this McDonald's so we got a taco salad and a deluxe personal pizza for $7.77 total! Both were really good and we had leftovers too! After eating, we went back upstairs and played a credit of PIU together. The pads were bad, panels weren't raised, volume was low, usbs were switched around and one didn't work, and a button on the 1P side didn't work so it was impossible to set any mods on that side but the screen was crisp and clear and joint premium was on. It was 6 credits ($1) for a 3 song set but joint premium was on. We traded off for the first two songs so we could record each other but we played the last song together. Then we went over to the Jungle Drummer game and played a song each (3 credits/1 song game). We didn't realize it was a ticket game til it told us we'd won tickets, which were automatically loaded onto our card as the arcade doesn't do paper tickets. It was kind of a kiddie game and a little easy but still pretty cool and we even got a couple of goodies from the ticket redemption area with our winnings.
We drove up and down International Dr a bit more then, just sight-seeing and admiring the various shops and theme parks from a distance. We saw the convention center IAAPA's held at and the area I'd walked around when I'd visited for IAAPA several years prior. Then we did some gift shopping and exploring on foot, parking every time we saw anything particularly interesting and walking for a closer look. We wound up getting a Florida shot glass for our collection, a little gift for Sean's mom, and some Arizona brand fudge float flavored drink we'd never seen before that tasted like chocolate soda. We passed some gator-feeding place and got to see a bunch of baby gators and touch one that had its mouth rubber banded shut. Sooooooo adorable! Then we spotted an arcade!:
Magical Midway Arcade
7001 International Dr
Orlando, FL
Inside, we found a good number of games including one music game: DDR Supernova! It was out of order at the time, awaiting the arrival of a replacement part, but would be fixed again once the part arrived. Looking at ddrfreak later though, we were disappointed to see that they used to have an ITG2 dedi, along with their DDR Supernova, but apparently it'd been since removed. There were credits left in several of the other games in the arcade but we didn't want to spend our whole vacation gaming so we just tried one quick credit on Kung Fu Panda and headed out.
Feeling done with International Dr, which was pretty much the polar opposite of downtown Orlando, we decided to take a bit of a drive to somewhere further: Cape Canaveral. I wanted to show Sean Cocoa Beach, where my ex boyfriend Brett Beatty/Flash had taken me years prior! It was about 8:20pm when we got to Cape Canaveral and the sun was starting to go down. We stopped at a gas station called RaceTrak for a bite to eat and found lots of interesting and tasty things there! They had weird things we'd never seen before like crab chips, $1 burgers and other inexpensive microwaveables, hot boiled peanuts still in their shells (very soft and strange!),.. In the end, we got banana cake, coffee and soda refills in bottles from drinks we picked up the night before, 4 burgers (for both then and later), and crab chips that were and good but didn't taste anything like crab. Then we drove on to the area I'd been years prior and parked in the same area I had back then, near the Ron Jon surf shop. We looked around the shop for a long while and got Sean an awesome shirt there. It was dark out then but all the better! I'd never seen the beach there in the dark. We walked out to the ocean for a look and a dip. There was almost no one else there so we had plenty of privacy. We hadn't been so alone in days so we took full advantage. For the first time this trip, I got to enjoy Sean's body the way I wanted to. We both got on our knees in the sand, pulled Sean's shorts down, pulled my bikini bottom aside and,...Mmmmm... Good timing too because just as we finished a lifeguard came out of his nearby hut and spotted us! :o We got away with it though. Haha We grabbed out stuff and walked on down the beach a bit. Then we went out into the surprisingly and refreshingly warm-ish ocean, took our soap, and played around while having a nice wash!
Finally back at the car, we drove around for a little look at the area. Then we headed back towards Orlando, stopping for a few pics of sights such as the Exploration Tower.
There were A LOT of tolls driving around Florida but fortunately they were pretty low, between $0.50 and $1.75 from what we saw, with the average being $1 or $1.25.
My dance game friend Lenni who I'd known since I lived in California, originally from Puerto Rico but living in Orlando for quite a few years now, had messaged me earlier and we'd coordinated to meet after she got off work at Disneyworld at 2am. Sean and I headed over there once we got back to Orlando and picked her up. Her apartment was right across the street so we all headed there together. When we got there, her boyfriend came out to meet us and she introduced us to him. Inside, Sean and I admired some of Lenni's dance game collectibles, especially her DDR Solo machine pad and header/top, and exchanged some goodies with her! I gave her an arrow necklace and one of the San-X bears I'd gotten in Chicago and she gave us a couple of little DDR Storm posters and a delicious cupcake from her work! We hung out, chatted for a bit, and watched some tv and then she helped us set up a futon in her living room and let us stay the night! Finally, we all went to bed, though I was the last one to sleep a little before 6am.
Day 8 - 5/28/15:
Lenni's boyfriend had to work so he was long gone for the day when the rest of us woke up around 1pm. Unfortunately, we'd all caught the colds that were going around at DDR Storm AND the girls tournament. Lol Sick day!
After getting ready for the day, we headed out and got Subway.
Then we drove to Disneyworld's water park Typhoon Lagoon where we met Lenni's friend Shirley who happens to play dance games too. (Shirley was visiting from Puerto Rico, where Lenni's originally from, for DDR Storm.) Lenni used her employee discount to get us all in for only $10 each (WAY cheaper) and the four of us had an amazing time riding slides and getting wet together. Lol To sweeten things, Lenni and Shirley wanted to buy a couple more arrow necklaces from me after the water park so Sean and I basically only spent $4 by coming out. :p
The water park closed at 6pm, I believe, but that was far from the end of our fun. Next, we drove to another of Disneyworld's parks: Hollywood Studios! There, Lenni not only got us free parking (normally $18) but got us all into the park for free (normally over $100 per person)! From then til the park closed at 10pm, we took a zillion pics, rode rides, and were pretty much the biggest of kids. Lol We even went into a LONG Frozen (movie) singalong show. Hahaha It wasn't really our thing but it was funny and the park had free wifi so we caught up on Facebook stuff while in the show! Of the rides we did, the Aerosmith rollercoaster was the most badass. It was SO good! A lot of the rides were the exact same ones they had at Disneyland in California but not all of them and definitely not the Aerosmith one. The Twilight Zone hotel one was like the California one, though I'm not sure whether it was completely the same or not. Either way, we were extremely shocked and thrilled by the one here at Disneyworld. It was awesome!
We were really hungry once we left the park so we drove to a part of Orlando called Old Town and went somewhere Lenni recommended called Flippers Pizzeria. Sean wasn't in the mood for pizza but we kept Lenni and Shirley company while they ate and then drove down the street to another Racetrak gas station where we got tons of cakes, snacks, burgers, and drinks for just under $12 total!
Lenni had to work the next morning and Shirley was spending the night at Lenni's but Sean and I had to leave in the morning so it was time to part ways. We dropped the girls off at Lenni's, said goodbye, and then Sean and I drove back to Old Town to explore. Just about everything other than the bars there were closed but it was fun just to look around at all the shops, carnival area, rides,..They had a couple of arcades too but we couldn't see in one of them at all and couldn't see in the other enough to tell whether they had dance games. While walking around though, we DID find a cute frog!
A little after leaving Old Town, we saw a really neat looking, 2 story McDonald's.
McDonald's
7344 W Sand Lake Rd
Orlando, FL
While driving by, we noticed they had an arcade with a DDR Extreme machine on their second floor so we u-turned and went in for a look! The arcade was closed at the time but the games were left on and the cashier was cool enough to escort us upstairs so that we could get some pics and step on an arrow! This McDonald's was actually on the opposite side of a freeway underpass from the world's largest entertainment McDonald's, where we'd visited the previous day.
Since we were leaving Orlando at noon the following day (technically same day, as it was well after midnight), we started driving towards the rental car return, stopping at a big Racetrak gas station a few miles away. Then we organized our things and fell asleep together at 3:30am.
Day 9 - 5/29/15:
We were up again at 9am, dripping in sweat because we'd been too stubborn to sleep in separate seats and just made each other way too hot. Lol We went inside RaceTrak to wash faces, brush teeth, and pee but when we got inside and saw how many more new things this Racetrak had than the others we'd been to we had to try a few more things! The best of those things was the delicious country sausage links but the one we were most impressed by was the free coleslaw in the condiments selection for hot food purchases.
I'd been a little wrong about how Payless' gas policy worked but apparently I'd prepaid half a tank of gas at $2.15 per gallon, which was actually a really good move. I still needed to put in just over a quarter tank to bring the car up to half though so we put $13 in at a nearby gas station and returned the car with just more than necessary. Then we got the shuttle back to the airport and spent $27.05 total on a taxi from the airport to the Megabus station. We'd planned to get the city bus there for $23 cheaper but we were a little behind schedule, didn't want to miss our Megabus trip, and thought the taxi price was actually a good deal.
The Megabus station was super ghetto but we couldn't complain. We'd only spent $1 each on our tickets plus a small service fee, bringing our total cost to $3.50 for two people! WOW. The double-decker bus that drove us was pretty nice too and even had outlets and free, intermittent wifi. :p
The bus left the station in Orlando just after 12pm and got us to the Tampa station just before 2pm. The station was at what seemed to be the northern end of downtown so we walked around the nearby bit of downtown for a small look, got some wifi, and booked ourselves a rental car so we'd be able to get around more easily for the next two days we were there. Then we got a city bus to the airport for $2 each and picked up our rental car. It was with Alamo through Hotwire, $38.01 for two days. Not bad!
We needed to get our bearings then so we drove to a 7 eleven to get a drink and work out where we were going. On the door, they had a deal for a free Nestea for customers who used their 7 Eleven app while making a purchase. We got a drink refill, a cake, and two free Nesteas. Then we drove towards Clearwater to see the Gulf of Mexico for the first time and visit the beach!
Traffic made the drive a little long but we found a thrift store on the way, stopped in, and managed to get me a much-needed spare pair of workout shorts for $3!
Once getting to Clearwater, it was really hard to find parking but cool just driving by and seeing everything. By the time we managed to find a parking spot, we were at Indian Rocks Beach, just south of Clearwater. The sun had nearly set then. It was just after 8pm then, actually, but the water was warm as well as very salty! We got a few pics before it got too dark, collected some shells (free souvenirs), and went for a dip and to play in the waves! It started sprinkling lightly off and on but it didn't bother us at all or last long either. Once done in the water, we used our own soap and supplies and the beach showers and cleaned up! It didn't last long though..
We started driving south towards St. Petersburg to see what the major beach area there was like. It was too late to go back to the beach though and we'd had our beach fun so we just planned to have a look at whatever shops and odd sights we might find on the way. There were so many cool-looking shops and things I wanted to explore! Mostly everything was closed though so we decided to just get some stuff to eat, call it a night, and continue where we left off in the morning.
While driving from Clearwater to St. Petersburg, Sean and I took off our swim bottoms and put them on the dash to dry. We wound up getting distracted by each other's nude parts though and having to pull over to handle some adult business. Lol
In St. Petersburg, we eventually stopped at a convenience store, which seemed to be one of the few types of businesses actually open. The place was called Sunshine Food and Gifts. We went in to look for a snack or two we don't normally find in Vegas and wound up spending a good several minutes looking at all the different things we found there ie: cans of Arizona energy drink, more boiled peanuts (guess it's a thing around here?), pickled eggs. While looking around though, the cashier, who also happened to be the manager, got impatient with us and asked us what we were looking for. I told him we were just having a look around and deciding what we wanted. After a few minutes, we chose and went to buy a couple of spicy pickled sausages, 2 for $1. When we went to pay though, the manager muttered a complaint about how we looked around for "half an hour" (mayyyybe 10 minutes max and that was while he had other customers coming in and out anyway) and only spent $1. Wtf Seriously?! We told him how rude and uncalled for that complaint was, that it wasn't at all right for him to bitch when customers wanted to look at items before buying ESPECIALLY since we weren't from the area and didn't know what half the shit was, that if he was that impatient and had a problem with things like that he was probably in the wrong business, etc. He replied with things like, "this isn't Walmart. You want to look around, you go to Walmart." The argument went on for a good few minutes and we got a lot of it on video, despite his best efforts and him claiming that it was illegal for us to record him and his store. Whatever. We finally left. It was far from over though. I wanted him to know he was wrong and that he was being a prick but if he refused to learn he needed to at least know that there would be consequences for treating his customers so poorly. Accordingly, I spent a few minutes preparing a lesson for him. Then I went back in to tell him about the websites I'd be posting posting pics, vids, and negative reviews of his store on and "accidentally" spilled a fresh, warm, very full cup of piss I was carrying ALLLLLLL over and down his checkout counter (where the register and last minute candies and such are). Of course I wasn't sorry but it was an "accident" so when I spilled it I just said, "shit.." and walked out. He looked taken aback but I didn't stick around to watch the aftermath. The cup looked like it was full of Mountain Dew when I set it on the counter though so I'm sure he was a little unhappy when he went to clean it with a thing paper towel or something and got it all over his hand. Hahaha Wish I could've been there to see but the feeling of sweet revenge was enough to give me peace of mind for the night.
Feeling good, it was time to celebrate. What better place than Waffle House? We quickly drove down a bit to see the end of the island/area where we were and then went to one of the nearby Waffle House locations. We were pretty hungry then so we ordered 2 waffles, 2 burgers, and 2 egg and cheese biscuits. Our total was about $11 or so including tip and we even had leftovers! We had some entertainment during our meal, watching one of the Waffle House employees struggle to make waffles, too. Lmao
We were tired then so we drove to a nearby Walmart to get some groceries and brush our teeth. Then we found an IHOP down the street, which looked like a better place to park for the night, and cuddled up in the backseat of the car to watch an episode of The Simpsons and finally get to sleep around 4am.
Day 10 - 5/30/15:
Side note: today marked the 8 year anniversary of the day Danny and I met! Since I wasn't home to celebrate with him, we'd all be going to Melting Pot to make up for it after Sean and I got back to Vegas!
The backseat was comfy enough that we were able to get some pretty good sleep. We woke up a couple of times but didn't get up til noon. Once we DID get up, we went to McDonald's to get wifi and a tea for Sean. Then we drove over the nearby Sunshine Skyway Bridge, I believe it's called, just for a look! The toll each way was $1.25 and there was an additional $0.75 toll to get back into the area we were in before the bridge. It was already worth it for a look but on the way over someone a car ahead of us gave the toll booth attendant $5, saying to keep the change, so the attendant used it towards the next few toll payers' fees-ours included!
After coming back across the bridge, we started driving back up through St. Petersburg towards Clearwater and Tampa to do some daytime beach area exploration! With a little effort, we first parked at Treasure Island Beach and walked out to the water. It was really warm in some areas and cooler but still much warmer than an average pool in others. I couldn't believe how calm the water was and how small the waves were at the Florida beaches we'd visited. I missed Cali's waves but enjoyed the warm water around Florida. There were small, greyish fish near the shore but we didn't see them anymore once we started walking out further. Guess they caught onto us and swam off. The water was a bit dusty and cloudy but clear enough to see a bit with the GoPro. We had our goggles with us too so we had a look underwater. There were, of course, tons of shells but the coolest of the things we found was probably countless living sand dollars sitting on and buried in the sandy gulf floor and ranging from the size of a dime to a little larger than the palm of a big hand. They were brown in color with tiny spikes all over them. I never knew would've expected that! We swam around for a lonnnng time and even collected some cool shells from below the water as well as from the shore.
A little further down was Madeira Beach. We found a really cool beachfront shopping center there and fought to park there so we could look around a little. While there, we found an upstairs arcade!:
Beach Fun and Games
12975 Village Blvd
Madeira Beach, FL
Inside, they had a DDR Supernova machine (4 tokens for 3 songs), IIDX Happy Sky, and quite a few non-music video games as well! The arcade hours were 9:00 am-10:00 pm daily. Sean and I didn't want to stay too long but we shared part of a song on DDR just to say we'd tried the machine. Very awesome to randomly find yet another dance game location this trip!
Since getting to Tampa, we'd seen quite a few Lizards scurrying around. They were way too fast to catch and play with though.
When we finally got back up to Clearwater, we found a cool-looking family fun place that said "video games", "arcade", and other enticing words on it but upon closer inspection no longer had any accessible arcade machines. We saw a few miscellaneous machines in a pretty empty room there but the room was closed off and there were no music games inside anyway. When we asked, we were told they used to have an arcade there but it was closed now. They still had mini golf though and a parot that said "hello" in their lobby as well.
We'd seen a few other mini golf places between St. Petersburg and Clearwater but didn't see any signs of an arcade from the street and didn't go inside to check.
Clearwater beach was really pretty but parking was close to impossible so we just drove by it for a bit and had a look from the car before heading back to Tampa.
On the way back to Tampa, we stopped at a McDonald's for caffeine, wifi, and outlets again. Inside, we found very subtle yet high-tech things like a table that lights up with dots that change color when touched, computers with games for kids, and outlets that have usb ports as well. They also had a separate counter for ordering McCafe items.
It was raining again when we left and we saw some lighting too. The humidity was a bit much but we liked the warm Florida weather. It was much warmer than Chicago, cooler but more moist than Vegas, and maybe on par with parts of Cali but higher humidity than there too. Cali weather is probably my favorite, maybe because that's where I'm from, but I guess I do prefer the warm water around Florida over the Pacific Ocean.
Once in Tampa, Sean and I paid a quick visit to the Raymond James Stadium, where the Buccaneers (NFL team) play, to snap a couple of quick pics.
Then we drove to downtown to finish looking around. It wasn't even 11pm yet but most of downtown was dead and quiet. Luckily, that made parking both easier and free. Downtown was pretty small and seemed to consist primarily of big businesses and government buildings but it was nice to check it all out and refreshing that it was so peaceful. The best part of it all was probably the river walk, which was an illuminated walkway by the river. It seemed the city had put a lot of effort into making that one of the better attractions in the area. From it, we saw fishies swimming around in the river. I found a $5 on the ground there too. Yay! There was an intriguing old theater in downtown and a couple of doors down from there we found a combination bar and liquor store. We didn't feel like drinking but we peeked inside and found a few good deals on things we'd been craving. In the liquor store section, the cashier was fun and really polite. We spent a few dollars and got 2 pickled eggs, a pickled sausage, and a Drumstick ice cream!
Back at the car, it was about time to call it a night. We drove to the nearest Walmart, parked, and went to sleep together at 3 am.
Day 11 - 5/31/15:
It'd been a little too warm through the night and morning but we woke up again at 10am and felt pretty rested and just a bit sweaty. For some reason though, my eyes were REALLY bloodshot and a little muscousy. Must be the cold we caught off our friends?
Our flight was at 3pm so we drove to a Wawa gas station nearby to prepare. We gassed up and cleaned out the car, repacked our luggage, cleaned ourselves up a tiny bit, made delicious sandwiches with the remaining chicken and veggies and such from our Walmart shop two nights prior, and took advantage of Wawa's $0.79 any size coffee deal! The coffee sizes went up to 24oz but we couldn't drink that much so we got 16oz cups, drank a bit of milk (with the coffee supplies) from them first, and then I got a salted caramel coffee and Sean got a hot tea.
A little before 1pm, we returned the rental car, checked in for our flights (back to Vegas with a Houston layover), checked a couple of our bags (1 free per person with United Mileage Plus), drank the rest of our drinks (blehhh), got thru security, found some outlets to charge up, and used the wifi for 1.5 hours while we waited to board the plane.
Taking off from Tampa, the view was gorgeous and the Gulf of Mexico was like nothing I'd seen before!
I think we landed in Houston just a little early but we still didn't have enough time between flights to do much so we headed over to our next gate and boarded at our schedule time. Once everyone was boarded, however, they discovered a problem with the plane and had to have everyone get off again. Luckily, Sean and I had the United Club passes we get once per year for being Mileage Plus card holders so we went to the United Club lounge to relax and chow down on snacks while we waited for our flight. In addition to a bar (where you can purchase drinks), free beverages and snacks, hard candies at the front desk, various lounging and seating options, free wifi, outlets, and a few other amenities, the lounge had showers! We didn't have enough time to take advantage of the shower but we did take full advantage of the drinks and snacks! We made ourselves coffees and teas, took spare tea and hot chocolate packets for later, and took and ate LOTS of foods.
Our flight finally departed just under 2 hours after the scheduled time but we didn't mind the delay at all. We got back to Vegas without any further complications and, not long after arriving, Danny came to pick us up. Then we all went to Jack in the Box for milkshakes and went home!
