November 22 - The Princess Bride with Medina
My blogs are going to be a little out of order, but here we go. Somehow my friend Sara and I got to talking about this 'Princess Bride movie' thing that was being advertised for the Devos Hall. Medina and I decided that we should go it. So I told her I would buy the tickets. I wanted good seats, so I got 5th row or something like that. What I didn't realize at the time, was that our tickets included a VIP pass to meet Cary Elwes, a signed copy of his book and a picture with him! So on the day of the event, I was up at our plant in Big Rapids for work. I just happen to look at my personal email and I saw this whole thing about 'VIP pass and make sure you are early and blah blah blah'. Then it dawned on me...OMG OUR TICKETS ARE VIP! I quickly texted Medina and was like, HOW FAST CAN YOU GET TO GR? She's like, I'm out the door NOW! So, I leave work early and hightale it to GR. I literally had just enough time to get to GR, park, check in to the hotel and change my clothes before Medina gets there. She throws her stuff in the room and we head to Devos. We got there in perfect time! We just had to wait our turn in line and then we got to meet THE CARY ELWES! He was very kind and asked us if we had ever seen the movie on the big screen...we were both like NO! And we were super excited to watch it! He actually chatted with us for a few minutes! Then we got our picture and our signed book. I'm so glad that I realized that our movie tickets included this bonus!
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CARY ELWES (The Princess Bride), me and Medina.
After the VIP meet and greet, Medina and I had time to get a few drinks and have dinner. Then we headed back to Devos for the start of the movie. |
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| We got to watch the movie on the big screen at the Devos hall |
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After the movie, Cary Elwes came out and did a Q and A. He had some funny stories about filming the Princess Bride...I believe that the stories were excerpts from his book, so I am excited to read it. The one interesting thing he did say, is that the movie 'bombed' at the box office. HOWEVER, it came out in theaters at the same time VCRs were coming out. He took a pole of the audience...he asked "how many of you first saw this movie on VHS?". Pretty much everyone in the audience raised their hand. He said that the movie blew up and became popular because of VHS rentals. And he said that he knew it was a hit when he was ordering breakfast as some restaurant and the waitress who took his order said 'As you wish'. It was such a fun and awesome time!
After the movie, we just headed back to the hotel for the night. And because I am INSANE, I had planned on flying to Philly Saturday morning to meet up with Tracy and run the marathon!
So, Saturday morning, I got up around 4 to catch a flight to Philly. Because timing was tight, I had to wear my running clothes on the plane. I told Medina to just stay and sleep in and eat breakfast. haha. Which she did! Once she saw me off, I drove to the airport to head to Philly. |
November 23 - Fly to Philly, get number at Expo, run to start of 8k
As soon as I landed in Philly, I got an Uber to the hotel. I was able to get in to our room, organize my running stuff and then run to the Expo to get my numbers. The marathon was actually on Sunday. However, I decided that I needed to do a 'challenge' and I was going to run the 8k on Saturday and then the marathon on Sunday. I get to the Expo and get my 8k number. I was so frazzled and trying to hurry...I said to the girl handing out numbers, " I can't find my marathon info on my phone!'. She's like, "Go run the 8k and then just come back to get your marathon stuff! GO!". I am so glad that she helped me pull myself together because I could not think straight!
I got my number on and took off running for the start of the race. I got there with 15 min to spare...
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| The races all started at the Rocky stairs! |
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| The weather was great. I ran the 8k. Had all the snacks at the end. My favorite is that they had hot chicken broth! |
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| After the race, I walked back to the Expo and met up with Tracy to get the rest of my marathon stuff |
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| Tracy's pre-race tradition is to get a beer and a giant pretzel. Which we did before going back to the hotel to crash for the night. |
November 24 - Marathon day!
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| Tracy and I at the start. The weather was cool, dry and sunny. The perfect running weather |
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| I was shocked at how big this race was. Google said that over 12k people ran the full marathon but there were around 17k total between running the 8k, 1/2 and full. |
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| I usually don't take many pictures during the race, but I had to stop and take a picture of this. It was just a coincidence that I ran past one of our dealerships or partners for Haworth. |
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| I finished! |
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| Tracy and I planned on meeting back at the hotel after the run. So, I started my walk back after I finished. I saw that there was this Christmas market going on. I stopped and got myself a hot mug of mulled wine! It was just what I needed. |
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| I got an 8k medal, a marathon medal and a challenge medal. They all had liberty bells that jingled. It was funny walking back after the race because you could hear the medals all around. |
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| After the marathon, we had just enough time to shower, eat snacks and hobble to the Mutter Museum before the last call for entering. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures in here. We spent 1.5hrs here in this small museum and easily could have spent another 10 hrs here. If you like interesting, medical science stuff, this is the most amazing museum ever. They have real skulls, full skeletons and cadavers. Most of the people that they have, had some kind of disease or medical condition and were used for studying back in the mid-1800s when the need for studying the human body was coming to light. I thought they did a great job or preserving the integrity of the bodies and I thought they were as respectful as they knew how. The sad thing is that some of these bodies were obtained a long time ago and there is no documentation as to who there are, or where they came from or how they were obtained. There are cadavers of adults and children...the children can be a little rough to see because it is their full bodies...BUT, it is very interesting to see what a body looks like at different stages of gestation. They have pieces and parts in glass cases so you can see what the vessels and muscles look like. You could see what bones look like after being attacked by different diseases. The 'Soap Lady' is there. She was buried in such strange conditions that her body is preserved by a wax that looks like soap...but it's just the fats from the body. To be fair, some people were there to gawk and stare and make comments, but I found it incredibly interesting.... Google pictures if you want to see what is there. |
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| After the museum, we found this awesome pub to have drinks and eat dinner. It was all decked out for Christmas. |
November 25 - Liberty bell and old congress house and get to airport just in time!
Our final day, we got up and had breakfast in the hotel. We were sitting there and chatting and realized that we had just enough time to walk to the Liberty Bell before Tracy would have to grab an Uber to the airport. So off we went!
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| Ye Old Congress House |
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| Inside Ye Old Congress House |
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We got there right when the building opened. There was already a line of a handful of people waiting as well. As we stood there, we realized that everyone there had their marathon medals from the day before. Tracy and I were like, "Aw man, what a great idea!" It never dawned on us to bring our medal to the Liberty bell to get a picture. The lady in front of us heard us talking and she's like "Here, take my medal for a picture! You came all this way and you need a picture with the bell!". So we both took turns taking our picture with her marathon medal. That was super nice of her to do that!
After running around the area getting pictures we had to hustle back to the hotel so that Tracy could catch her Uber. We arrived in the room, she grabbed her stuff and took off! It was a quick trip but super fun time with Tracy again! I'm looking forward to some more trips with her in 2025!
Ok...now back to finishing up all my other blogs from 2024! |
