Back in the saddle again!

As I mentioned yesterday, last night saw me back at raid leading.  I grabbed several friends (and two pugs) and we went into ICC 10.

This was sort of an “alt” run in that several people brought their under geared alts in the hope of getting them gear.  Zug brought his rogue, Soth brought his pally and Del brought his pally.  I am happy to say that we only had to shard one item.  I think it was spell power leather boots.  I had the ICC crafted ones on my druid and the boomkin we brought in didn’t want them.

The two pugs I brought in were lesser geared as well.  The arcane mage, the boomkin, Zug’s rogue and Del’s pally weren’t really geared at all to be perfectly honest.  They all got upgrades though. ^_^  It made me so happy to see gear going to people who really needed it.  The lower spire showered Zug’s rogue with leather, the upper spire had cloth and plate.  Lootship dropped the caster dps trinket and the mage rolled a 100.  He was so excited about it.  The staff dropped off Saurfang and the boomkin was squeeing.  Ok so maybe he didn’t actually type it or say it over vent, but the dude was squeeing.

Silly males and their fear of openly squeeing.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well we did actually.  We had a rough start with wiping to the trash (bad pulls & extra mobs) a few times before MG, but we one shot everything up to Rotface.  We would have one shot Rotface but the MT DCd along with one of the dps right in the middle of the fight.  I think we were down to like 20 or 30 something percent when it happened too.  I was super happy to say that I didn’t have to tell one person to get out of the raid with their slimes.  I did have to yell at people to move out of slime spray, but that much is about par for the course.  I think Soth was having issues with people finding him to drop off their slimes, but at least they weren’t in the raid!  Am I right? 😀

We regrouped after the wipe and took Rotface and Festergut down without any issues.  We actually had the quest for the double essence from them so that was awesome.  If I am recalling correctly, we didn’t have a single death on those fights.  Zug *might* have died, but I can’t remember.  Zug always dies though.  This really is no surprise. ^_^

We went up to the professor and gave it a couple of tries.  The best we did was 18%.  It was late and we had new people.  Considering that, the fact that we made it that far is just amazing.  We have plans to continue the raid on Saturday evening and I am confident that we will take him down and clear up to Sindy.  I don’t think this particular group has the dps to be able to pull off Sindy, but we shall see.  I am short at least 1 raider so hopefully whomever I can get to come in and help out will be able to bring the pain dps-wise.

Here is something:

Stop and think for a minute and tell me if you have done a raid without a shaman in it.

You haven’t recently have you?

Last night, we didn’t have a shaman.

Not

A

One

There was no lust, no totems, nothing.  Strangely enough not one piece of mail dropped either.  Hmmm.

I know several people were feeling the lack of a shammy.  Not having a lust available kind of makes the fights seem like they were taking an extra long time to do.  Which they probably were.

I had a few people comment to me that we were low on the dps.  I looked at it (not too closely, but a glance) and it looked like the dps that I saw people doing when ICC first came out.  Now I am talking about your average player.  I know the numbers were very close to what the raiders in EoF were doing.  I did notice as we went along, how much better everyone was getting.  For example, the mage got the trinket from lootship and his dps jumped big time the moment he equipped it.  It was pretty awesome to see.  I know he was ecstatic over it.

What I wanted to do when I set up the raid was to just have fun.  I didn’t care how geared people were.  The mage asked me what requirements were needed to join the raid and my reply was “being a nice person.”  With his gear and his lack of experience, he would have most likely never gotten into a pug run with anyone.  Not only did he get to learn the fights, but he got a ton of gear upgrades.  The dude was so excited and enjoyed the raid so much he wanted to join my guild.  It was cute.  I think he had to be a kid though.  Just a feeling I got.

So I think I didn’t do too badly raid leading.  I didn’t have to yell overmuch.  I did have to explain every fight so that wasn’t all that different from when I raid lead before.  Explaining the fights kind of helps me in the long run.  If you can explain the fight where everyone understands, then you know your shit.  The fact that we one shot pretty much everything, just made me smile.

There was much joking and teasing from everyone about muting me and scaring the pugs with how mean I was and in the end the pugs loved me.  The boomkin said I was his favorite raid leader.  Aww 😀

My friends and guildies can DIAF though.

I kid!

I love those crazy people. 😀

Thanks again for joining me last night guys.  I appreciate you coming along for the run and I look forward to the continuation on Saturday night :D.

For my readers:  I don’t know how regular my updates will be.  I know I will have a picture for tomorrow’s post but I am not sure about next week.  Slice is in town for a week starting on Saturday (yes we are raiding while he is here, shut up :-p) and so I don’t think I will have much game time.  I do need to get you guys updated on the roguelette and the caster duo.  Maybe even talk about the “secret project” a bit more.  Although I am sure you could figure it out if you tried.  Oh well.

Laters!

Weekend in review

I had a nice weekend playing.  If you read my comments sections at all (and you really should) you would have seen that I was going to be raiding on Millea with Slopoke’s guild.  To make sure all was good to go (since they start raiding shortly after I get home from work) I logged into Millea on Thursday night.

I facepalmed so bad when I looked at her.

Yes it was that bad.

She hasn’t raided since Ulduar.  The highest gear she has is from the new ICC 5 mans.  She is in 2 piece T8 and 2 piece T9.  Both her trinkets and her off hand are ilvl 200.  Her gems were bad.  In fact, she didn’t even have her meta active.

*cries*

I wanted to go through and fix all of her gems but then I stopped myself and thought about it for a moment.  She wont be keeping this stuff for very long (assuming she raids with Slo more) and will be upgrading.

Of course this assumes that something other than enhancement shammy gear and plate drops from every fucking boss in ICC. >.>

Slo wasn’t kidding when she said that she makes it drop.  One cloth piece dropped the entire night.  ONE!  Luckily the pug priest we brought in didn’t roll on it.  He was a good pug.  He didn’t try to take off spec while he was healing.

Dooms finally got the staff he wanted.  Apparently it has been a running joke with them that Abracadaver doesn’t exist.  As a result, they run with it reserved for him on the off chance that it will drop.  I told Slo that it would drop because I was there (and thus could use it).  What happened?  It dropped of course. 🙂

So grats again to Dooms! 😀

I got my friendly ring from the Ashen Verdict.  That was a HUGE upgrade from the ring from ToC 5 >.< that I was wearing.  I mean HUGE.  I had the triumph badge ring on my other finger slot so when the ring dropped off BP it wasn’t that huge of an upgrade and I didn’t have a problem letting Dooms have it.

I had a ton of fun with Slo and the gang.  If they will have me back I think I shall be running with them again on Friday.

I really don’t know how much time I will be spending on Bloodhoof, but man oh man I am feeling the loss of the stuff I sent over with Tattia when I transferred her.  I sent her with my stockpile of gems, cloth, honor, flasks, fish, etc.  I still have fail mage over there so I can go farm herbs and make flasks, but it is just going to take a bit to get back up to where I was.  I just need to designate a day where I farm herbs.  Maybe on Tuesday.  Everyone will be raiding so it should be fairly quiet around the nodes.

It was kind of funny when I was trying to buy stuff for Millea’s raiding.  Drak’Tharon is a low pop server and has a weak AH.  Bloodhoof is one of the original servers, has a high pop and the market almost always has what you need, at a fairly cheap price.  Cheap flasks on DT are around the 20g range, usually closer to 25g.  On BH I got my flasks for 16-17g.  My gems were about 50g cheaper on BH too.  Of course we all know that Zug controls the gem markets on DT.

Speaking of Zug.  Last night I was on Lyssi farming in WG when I see him talking to me in gchat.  He started talking about racing in Ulduar.  Said that we needed to race on the racetrack before Mimron.  Dodging the bombs etc.  Said that we should do it as a guild.  He even set up something on the calendar.  I was laughing so hard.  It was so completely random and so totally Zug.  I ❤ you Zug, I really do. 🙂

I had forgotten how much fun it is to go into the “Goddess of Death” mode with Lyssi.  I was running around killing litterally EVERYTHING in my path.  It is a real ego booster let me tell you.  I ran over and decided to do the Ebon Blade dailies to get some cash (since I have been sending so much to alts and not playing my main) and I went onto the Savage Ledge.  Nothing is as much fun as killing all of those Vykrul guys until the entire ledge is empty and I have to run around and loot everything before they re-spawn.

SO MUCH FUN! ^_^

I spent some quality time on Saturday with the roguelette.  She is now 1 1/2 bars away from 37.  I got her engineering up so now she can make the 2 pets.  I made a few of each and tried selling them on the AH.  When I put up one of each, there weren’t any on the AH.  They sold almost immediately.  When I went to put up another set there were like 10 of each up there.  So I held back and will try again either tonight or tomorrow.  Made a nice chunck of change for the roguelette.  She won’t need to come crying to Lyssi and Tattia for gold any time soon.

Slice and I also worked on the caster duo on Sunday.  We got up to 23 I think.  He still isn’t feeling the ranged caster dps, but he sure loves to AoE.  I can’t wait to see his reaction once he gets Seed of Corruption at 70.  Now THAT is fun AoE.

I have another project that I am working on.  It has me all excited again.  Once everything is finalized I will annouce it on the blog.  Until then it will remain a secret project. 😀

No Tel it is not another alt. :-p

I think I might even try to set up a 10 man ICC for some point this week.  See if I can still raid lead.  Any takers? 🙂

Monday – The final encounter!

Monday was my final day in Sac.  My flight was scheduled to depart at 9 pm so I had essentially the whole day to spend with everyone.  I had to check out by 11 am so I made sure my alarm went off and that I had all my shit together.  It never seems to fail.  Whenever I travel, even when I don’t buy anything, I end up not having enough room to put all my stuff back.  I eventually pulled it off, but much swearing occurred. >.<

Zam was going to pick me up once I checked out and I was just going to spend the day with him and Ari until Soth got off work.  Him and I were then going to go to dinner and hang out until my flight left.

I called Zam, got his voicemail.  I left him a message then texted Ari.  I apparently woke her up >.>.  She said that Zam was on his way to come get me.  Woot!

When I got to the house Ari was almost ready to go.  It was decided that we would go out to breakfast then come back and chill out at the house until Soth got off work.  He told me he was coming straight from work.  We expected him around 5 ish.

Breakfast turned out to be at IHOP.  Told you it was an Arioch approved restaurant.  Here is where I found out the lamest thing.  I have celiac disease.  This means I cannot have gluten.  Other than cheating a little bit with some cheese sticks on Saturday I had been really good all weekend.  Well IHOP makes their omelettes with their pancake batter.  This is done to make the eggs “fluffy.”  I had to specifically ask to have my non-gluten choice of a meal to have the gluten taken out of it. >.<  Seriously people.  I already have to scour the menus to find SOMETHING that I will eat that doesn’t have gluten.  So when I find something that SHOULDN’T have gluten just to find out it does makes me sad in the pants.

You don’t want me sad in the pants.

So yeah, fast forward past my ham, bacon and provalone omelette (sans pancake batter) and we were back at the house.  Zam had some stuff to do so Ari and I decided to watch a movie.  We went through her movie collection and it was discovered that I had never seen Heavy Metal.  Yes I know, I am fail.  Growing up I wasn’t allowed to watch a lot of things and when I got older and could, I either didn’t know about them or wasn’t really all that interested.  So yes there is a ton of pop culture stuff that I am completely ignorant of.  I really don’t feel like im missing anything so whatever.

After the movie (which was pretty awesome) we played Flux.  It is a really interesting card game that has the rules change every hand.  It is almost impossible to plan how to win.  A lot of it just plain dumb luck.  Ari apparently has several different flavors of this game.  The version we played with was Monty Python.  It was hilarious.  There was a card where if you used an outrageous accent you got to play extra cards.  I *think* you were supposed to keep the same accent.  Ari kept changing her accent.  It was hilarious.  The first time we played I didn’t use one when the card was played.  It didn’t stop me from teasing Ari about hers. 😀

After a bit we quit Flux and started playing Gin Rummey again.  Zam eventually made his way out of his office and joined us.  We had been playing for a while when Soth came over.  He played  rummey with us for a hand or two then we switched back over to Flux.  He actually ended up winning that game too.  It was by sheer luck though.  One of the rules that got placed was you had to play every card in your hand.  Ari had the goal card that made it where the cards that Soth had played made him win.  Needless to say, he was in a good mood. 🙂

We still had a bunch of pictures left on the camera and I realized that I had no pictures of Ari and I so we trouped outside to take pictures to try to get the film used up.  Several pictures were taken of Ari and I.  Some more were taken of Soth and I and a picture was taken of Ari and I kissing Soth.  He has been talking about wanting to see that picture since it was taken.  I was informed by Ari last night that she took the pictures in to be developed yesterday.  So as soon as she goes back to pick them up I will have them :).

Soth and I ended up going to dinner at the restaurant across the street from my hotel.  It wasn’t too bad of a place.  Our waiter had really fucked up teeth, which Soth made jokes about.  Such a meanie I know.  I gave him the whole guilt trip for picking on the guy so don’t worry on that regard.  After dinner we drove out to the airport and just chilled out talking in the parking lot until it was close to the time I had to check in. 

I had a pretty uneventful flight home.  Lots of text messages sent out to friends.  In between flights I was chatting with Tir on the phone and filling him in on my day.  In case you hadn’t noticed I like to talk.  I like to repeat everything to everyone I talk to.  My friends are used to it.  I like to think it is just part of my charm ^_^

My flight from SF to SD actually landed early so I had to wait for a bit at the airport for Andrew & Kate to come pick me up since I couldn’t call them until the plane landed.  It wasn’t too bad though.  I got to regale them with stories the whole way home. 😀

So that was my trip.  I know I had a blast and I can’t wait until I can go back. 😀  Once I get pictures I will post a few on here (once I get approval from the people in them) and the rest will go up on my facebook page.  I am going to try to get a response post up tomorrow for Del’s non-meme post on top of Screenshot Friday.

Super Sunday – The Seconded!

I got flack for not talking more about the train ride in my last post.  So let me fill you in a bit more.

As we first pulled away from the station Soth decided he was going to be weird and started waving frantically at the people we were passing.  This was done with a complete idiotic grin on his face too.  The best part was the fact that people smiled and waved back.

While cruising down the track he started talking smack about the people on bikes riding next to the train.  It was hilarious and I joined in with him.  We also waved at the bikers.

When we first got on the train we were facing towards the door that we entered on.  This put our backs to everyone else.  Soth gets motion sickness if he is facing backwards.  We ended up having to change chairs because the train was going in the opposite direction than what we were faced in.  Thus began the game of musical chairs.  Each time we had to change seats we bounced on the seats.  I did tell you that they were bouncy.  For some reason Ari found our bouncing hilarious and kept giggling.

When we switched seats the first time I couldn’t get the window to go down.  Soth tried but couldn’t get it to move either.  It wasn’t until the return trip that he was able to get it to move down.  I think he almost took it as an affront to his manliness that he couldn’t open the window.  Silly males.

After the train ride we went back to the cars to make our way back to Ari & Zam’s house.  Tel joined Soth and I in his car.  I have found over the past months that Soth and I like a lot of the same music.  So while him and I were singing along to the radio Tel was just in the back trying to figure out what song was playing on the radio.  At one point we were sitting at a left arrow and I had my window down.  I was singing along to a Linkin Park song and some dude pulls up next to us.  He is all gangstered out and is just looking at me like I’m insane.  I of course smiled and said hi to him.  The dude busted out laughing and our light turned green.  We laughed in the car as well.

When everyone was back at the house we decided to start playing some games.  We started out with Apples to Apples.  This is a game where you really find out what your friends think you like.  We discovered that Ari thinks babies are chewy and Zari thinks boy scouts are spunky.  I personally like to pick cards that make me laugh the most.  They don’t always have to be exactly what the green card calls for, but it is my choice so :-p.

I ended up winning that game 😀

After Apples to Apples we played a drinking game called “What the F*ck” only we weren’t drinking.  We found out that Ari requires more than $500 to get naked in a pig pen and that even for $1 million I will not cut off my toe and eat it.  I wonder what that game would be like had we been drinking.  Some of those questions were 3 drink ones.

Oh and before I forget.  Tel is who you need to see if you need to hide and/or dispose of a body.

Just saying.

After What the F*ck we played this card game called Wizard.  It took a bit to figure out but it was a lot of fun.  Zari ended up winning it.  The funny thing was Soth was so competitive about it.  Zam sat back quietly calculating his wins, Tel sat there with a grin on his face, Ari was half there and I was just quiet.  Soth though, was pissy.  I teased him about it then, I teased him in the car and I am teasing him now. 😀  Makes me want to beat him at cards.

That night was Soth’s birthday dinner.  Because I was feeling grimy I wanted to shower before dinner.  Soth was volunteered to take me to my hotel so I could shower and change then we would meet everyone else at Outback for dinner.  We get to my hotel room and the fucking key doesn’t work again.  I tried it several times, Soth tried it, it wouldn’t budge.  So I left him with all my crap at the door and went down to the lobby to get a new key.  The dude was helping to check in another person so I waited.  Then as the dude left he started to help me.  The phone rings, he STOPS helping me and starts talking on the phone.  Now it is one thing if it was an important call, but the people on the phone wanted to know how to order pizza.  When you have a customer in front of you and the phone rings you politely ask them to hold, finish up with the person you were helping THAT IS STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU then go back to your phone call.  Grrrr

He re-keyed the same damn card and I made my way back up to my room.  Did I mention I was on the top floor?  Yeah >.>  I get there and the key doesn’t work.  Soth tried it again.  Still no go.  This time I made Soth come with me.  The clerk ended up closing down the office to come open up my room.  He gets up there and the first time he tries the key the fucking door opens. FML seriously.

At this point we are now 15 mins behind so I am in panic mode to shower and get ready.  Soth plops on the bed and starts watching TV and I quickly showered.  I grabbed his presents and with still dripping hair we left.  We had another really fantastic conversation on our way to the restaurant.  Soth is a really great guy and I am very happy I got to spend so much time with him. 🙂

It was decided that dinner was going to be at Outback so that Ari could have steak.  Even though Soth and I were running late, we showed up the same time as everyone else.  We walked in and everyone started teasing Soth about having wet hair (which he didn’t) and thoroughly making him blush.  Was totally cute.

We got our table and had Soth open his presents.  Now my original plan was to get him a blue sequined thong.  I couldn’t find one for the life of me.  I finally settled on a blue leopard print one.  What was supposed to happen was he was supposed to pull it out and have his gift card fall out of it so that everyone would see it.  At that time a picture was supposed to be taken.  It was kind of dark in the restaurant so I am not sure how well the picture picked up his blush, but it was there.  It was more of a “Why do they do this to me” with a mental facepalm happening verses an embarrased one.

Good times : )

Towards the end of the night we all got together for a group picture.  Zari was standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders.  I grabbed them and put his hands on my breasts.  He yelped.  It was hilarious.  I was vastly amused.

After dinner we all said our goodbyes.  I was dropped off at my hotel (where it took me 5 tries before the damn key worked) and my day ended.

I will try to get Monday’s events done and posted soon. 🙂

Super Sunday! – The first installment

Sunday ended up being my favorite day in Sac.  This was the day we got to be all touristy and when I would be able to hang out with everyone.

Oh and go on a train ride 😀

Zari was driving down from Chico and was supposed to be at Ari & Zam’s house around 10:30 am.  Soth was going to be meeting us there around that time and Tel was just going to meet us in Old Town Sac.  Zam picked me up and brought me back to the house.  Zari and Soth were both there already.  As Zari already mentioned I popped in, hugged everyone then punched them.  I didn’t punch Soth on Saturday because his daughter was there.  She didn’t need to see someone hitting her daddy. 😀  What I think was funny was I really don’t think they believed that I would punch them.

Well HA!  I told you I would.

By the way, Zari is totally cuddly.  I just wanted to sit and cuddle with him.  I would have if I wouldn’t have thought it would have made him feel uncomfortable.

We sat around waiting for Ari to finish getting ready.  We chit chatted and just got any awkwardness out of the way.  No matter how much you might feel you “know” someone you have met online there is still a bit of awkwardness when you first meet them in person.  Sometimes it ends very quickly and with others it can last the entire time.

Luckily it wasn’t long, if at all.  At least on my side.  I can’t answer for anyone else.  I was instantly at home with everyone.

We ended up having to take two cars so I got to ride with Soth. 😀  It was the first time we actually got a chance to chat alone and we had a very nice discussion.  He also showed off his phone.  It has Chuck Norris facts on it.  I giggled appropriately, as one should when reading Chuck Norris facts.

We got to Old Town Sac and Tel was waiting for us at the parking structure.  I hugged and punched him several times.  As only appropriate for Tel.

We made our way to the stores and just had fun checking out stuff.  I frankly was surprised I didn’t end up buying a bunch of stuff.  I think I was sufficiently distracted by everyone playing with all the toys in the stores we went into.  At one point the boys found light sabers and Soth had to bring out his light saber app on his phone.  So not only were they playing with the toys they were able to have noises too.  ^_^  Good times, good times.

We eventually made it to Evangeline’s and I personally had a blast in there.  We found the three wolf moon shirt and I posed for a picture despite not being cool enough to really wear the shirt.  I am convinced that just by holding it up to my chest that I was even cooler than normal.  It might explain some things that happened over the weekend . . . hmmm.

As with most stores like this, there was an 18+ section that Ari and I found our way to.  Zam soon found us in there as well as Tel.  We had been in there for a bit looking at stuff when Zari found us and exclaimed “I should have known I would find you guys in here.”  Soth never did make an appearance in the special room so I am not sure where he was hiding while the rest of us were in there.  What I found most amusing about that room was all the condoms had expired like 10 years ago.  No I wouldn’t have used them anyway (really, you DO NOT want to use gag condoms EVER) but the fact that they were so old just made me laugh.

I almost bought this:

Yummah

I wanted to.  I didn’t.  I wanted to though.

I still think I should have. *pouts*

When we finished perusing the store we decided that we were ready for food so we made our way to this bar/pub place there called Fanny Ann’s.  Everyone apparently knew the place and liked it.  I ordered a BBQ chicken sandwich and fries.  When I go to bars I like to chat with the bartender to find out new drinks that I should try.  That day I felt like a beer so I asked the bartender to recommend one for me.  The one he gave me was REALLY good and I cannot remember the damn name.  Sorry! >.>  I know it started with a S, but I cannot remember anything more.

Ari found us seats up on the top floor (3 stories) and we all chilled out talking about the music playing.  Lots of songs that I hadn’t heard since high school.  We all got our food and starting nomming.  I am a really slow eater (I had to train myself to do it and now I am stuck with it) so I think most everyone was done by the time I finished.  While we were sitting and waiting for everyone to finish Ari nabbed a pen from me and wrote on the wall something about Shadow Rising being there and listed our character names.  I’m not exactly sure what she wrote (it was small and I am kind of blind) but we officially marked the place.  There was talk about all of us getting together at a SR get together in TX to meet up with all the people who live there.  I personally think it would be a blast.

After lunch we walked to the leather store so Ari and I could smell the leather.  Sooooo delicious.   Apparently everything in that store was $20 or less.  I should have bought a leather jacket, but oh well.  Mmmm leather.

Oh!  Where was I?

Yeah!

We hit up a few more touristy shops as we made our way over to where the train station was supposed to be.  Tel said that he “thought” that you had to purchase tickets in the museum.  So off we went to the museum.  Turns out Tel was wrong (go figure) and we had to purchase tickets at the ticket booth near the station.  We talked about viewing the museum, but we decided not to.  We hoofed it over to the ticket station just to find it closed.  Imagine my dismay at thinking I wasn’t going to ride a train.  It was not a pretty picture.  Luckily I found someone and asked about the trains.  She told me that the box office was just closed for another 30 mins and the next train would be back in 45.  Yay!  We decided to hit up the shops that were still closed when we arrived then come back and ride the train.

One of the places was a toy shop.  The clerk/owner was very chatty and I talked with her for a bit.  Avatar was playing on the TV in there and we all started discussing which movie it was taken from.  There were several theories, but I don’t think anyone changed their original thought.

I still haven’t seen that movie. >.>

We walked back to the station and the ticket booths were now open.  Tickets purchased, we moved over to the wall and just hung out until it was time to get in line to board.  I think I was hanging off everyone for a while.

I am a very touchy feely person.  I love to hug my friends or touch them.  If someone is obviously very uncomfortable over me touching them, or says something, then I hold off, but I usually will keep on doing it.  Zam was weird about it at first, but by Saturday he was hugging me back. ^_^

The train pulled up and we piled in.  We opted for the non-cattle car and nabbed seats on the side of the train next to the river.  Ari and Zam sat together.  Tel & Zari found their own seats and Soth and I sat together.

The day was just absolutely gorgeous.  There was a really nice breeze flowing through the window.  Soth and I were having really awesome conversation (and bouncing up and down on the seats).  It was just a really nice time.  I really do think it was my favorite part of the entire trip.

I just realized how long this post has gotten so I will end it here and finish up the rest of Sunday in another post.