Dan's 40th Birthday Big Bear Weekend- Day One

Originally, we wanted to celebrate Dan's 40th in Hawaii, but due to lack of vacation time, we had to pick something a bit more local. Dan loves Big Bear, so we booked up a three day weekend with tons of activities.

Unlike Lake Arrowhead, which has the very lovely Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa, we couldn't immediately pin-point the nicest resort in Big Bear. Although filled with beautiful homes and amazing restaurants, Big Bear seems to have a lack of luxury resorts. After many hours of internet research and recommendations from friends, we picked the NorthWoods Resort as our home for the weekend.

We were initially put off by the lack of a lake view, but what NorthWoods lacks in view, it makes up for in proximity to the village. This is the place to stay if you want the ability to walk to great restaurants and more importantly drink without having to worry about choosing a designated driver! The walk-ability factor was huge to our enjoyment of the weekend.

The decor in the hotel is rustic, cozy and cute. I had an great initial impression with the lobby and while waiting to check-in, I overheard a very enthusiastic front desk clerk giving out tips to another couple regarding local hiking trails. The staff was wonderful at NorthWoods, quick to make suggestions and generally ready to see that our needs were met.

We arrived very early on a Saturday morning and the early check-in fee was only ten dollars. Most things in Big Bear are far less expensive than in Los Angeles, so we spent the whole weekend suffering from reverse sticker shock.

Here are some of my NorthWoods first impression pictures.

Our room had cute woodsy decor touches, like towel racks that looked like tree branches. As far as hotels go it fit our basic needs. The room had standard amenities (coffee/hairdryer/iron/nice toiletries) and was roomy.

NorthWoods definitely had some negatives. The walls were paper-thin. We heard every bit of the conversations going on in the rooms surrounding us. The bed wasn't very comfortable, it was springy. The television wasn't in widescreen and as we were watching the news, the newscaster was often only on half on the screen. It was actually kind of funny. The biggest let-down was the pool, which was small and located in the parking lot. We didn't even bother to use it.

As I previously mentioned, NorthWoods' great location is what makes this resort a stand-out. We will likely return here to take advantage of its proximity. Minutes after dumping our luggage off in our room, we walked to the marina for our pontoon boat rental.

In summer, the marina books up their rental equipment very quickly. We reserved our two-hour pontoon boat ride three weeks in advance, but all of the people that were trying to book same-day or same-weekend rentals, were being told that they were out of luck. Book early!

As part of their contribution to Dan's birthday weekend, his parents paid for the boat trip. Thanks Jan and Dave! We had gone on a shorter pontoon trip when they visited us last September and it was something that Dan had wanted to do again.

I had packed a picnic for the boat, but unfortunately I had forgotten it in the car. The marina has a small selection of snacks, so we bought a bag of M&M's and bottled water.

We saw a funny little boat in the marina. It was so low in the water, that it looked like it was sinking.

Also near the marina was the Action Aqua Flight. It's a new thing that the Action Tour Company is offering this summer. It looked potentially fun, but also really hard to do. I'm not sure that I would want to get into the icy lake water to try it out!

Action Aqua Flight

It was an overcast, chilly morning on the lake. We found a small patch of sun on one side of the lake and joined a ton of other boats that were also taking advantage of the warmth.

Friday night had been a late evening spent kicking off Dan's birthday weekend with a few friends and we were running on empty having only gotten a fews hours of sleep before driving up the mountain. We parked the boat in the sun and took a much needed nap.

Dan took this beautiful panorama picture of the lake.

Sooner than we would have liked, our two hour rental was nearly finished and we had to head back towards the marina, through the cold part of the lake. We saw the Time Bandit pirate ship, something that we want to do on our next Big Bear trip!

For dinner, we walked to the village and found an amazing Mexican restaurant called El Jacalito Grill. The place was packed, but we managed to snag a high-top in the bar. I previously mentioned the stick-shock in Big Bear for those of us visiting from Los Angeles. El Jacalito was ridiculously inexpensive. We each had a large Coronarita (for the uninitiated- bottles of Corona in a Margarita).

Since it's his birthday, Dan is allowed to steal my drink.

We shared our main course, which was an enormous shredded beef burrito. The burritos are bigger than the ones at Chipolte. We left full and happy that we had the foresight to share. El Jacalito also has a salsa bar to accompany the tortilla chips, which was a fun touch. The total for our bill was around twenty dollars. Amazing!

Another Big Bear Village value is the cinema. It's a small four screen theater and anyone who lives in a big city will feel like this is a flash back to the eighties. It's older. That being said, we saw The Wolverine on opening weekend during peak movie times and it was only eight dollars a ticket. That's cheaper than the matinee at our local theaters. We joked (half-joked) about driving up to Big Bear just to spend a day watching movies to save money on our cinema habit. What did I think of The Wolverine? Stay tuned for a review coming at the end of the week.

With the exception of bars, Big Bear is a town that shuts down early. It was eerily quiet walking back to our hotel after the movie, around nine-thirty. We ended our night with Irish Coffees at the bar in NorthWoods, Stillwells.

Stillwells is a great addition to NorthWoods. It fits in with the rustic decor and the bar had a warm vibe. I really liked the bartender, who was from England and was chatting with us. NorthWoods really had great staff, everyone from check-in to cleaning staff to the bartenders, were very friendly. Again, we marveled at the low drink prices.

We called it an early night and headed to bed to wake up for Dan's Birthday and morning Segway tour!

Las Vegas, June 2013- National Geographic: 50 Greatest Photographs

I love National Geographic. My entire childhood the latest issue of the magazine sat on our coffee table on top of our two giant atlases, one of North America and one of the World. My mom loved geography.

Outside of briefly living in Germany and Virginia while my father was in the military, my mom didn't do a lot of traveling. Our family vacation was always to Maui. Not a bad family vacation destination, but it grew old over the years. My mom loved learning about the world and I always felt like she wished that she had seen more of it. She passed her love of the world along to me.

The monthly arrival of National Geographic was always an exciting mail day. When I was in elementary school, she subscribed to National Geographic World (in addition to National Geographic) a magazine for kids. One year, they ran a geography quiz contest with new questions in the magazine every month. My mom helped me discover the answers on our atlases. The contested ended up being a prize raffle for all of the kids who had the correct answers and although I didn't win, my name was put on a pull-out map in the magazine featuring all of kids that had the correct answers. One of my best friends also had his name on the map! Good memories.

When I think of National Geographic, I think of my mom and exploring amazing things with her from our couch. I was really excited to discover that the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas was hosting a National Geographic photography exhibit. The exhibit showcases what editors have picked as the fifty best or more iconic photographs.

We bought discount tickets to the exhibition at the Tix4Tonight booth in the Town Square Mall. The regular admission price is eighteen a ticket. The exhibit is amazing and wonderful, but not worth a full price admission.

Our tickets to National Geographic's 50 greatest Photos — Our tickets to *National Geographic's 50 greatest Photos*

We arrived late on a Friday, mid-afternoon and the exhibition was very quiet. We never had to wait to view a photo. The exhibition is located across from the Venetian Guest Check-In area, tucked away in a corner and a bit hard to locate. It has a small gift shop, which also serves as the entry to the exhibition.

The exhibition takes place in one big room, which is broken up by dividing walls in the center. The pictures are equally spaced throughout the walls with a small description of each photographed placed below or to the side of the picture.

Lighting is a problem. The lighting in the gallery is all fixed to enhance the photograph, which is great, however, in more than one case, it was too dark to read the information about the photograph. I felt like I was cheated on the experience. They should fix the lighting or hand out mini flashlights. Bring a mini flashlight, trust me.

The photographs are all very amazing and some are quite emotional. One that really caught me off guard was a photograph of a child of farmers whose sheep had been killed by a car. The kid is completely wreck with grief. I felt gutted looking at it.

I loved a picture of mountain climbers in a snow storm. They each are wearing a particular bright color, so that they can be easily identified during climbs. The picture showed the guys waiting out a severe storm. They are sitting in the snow and brilliant patches of vibrant pinks, oranges and blues on their outfits are peaking through the thick white.

There was a stomach churning picture of a dead bird and the contents of it's stomach. The bird had consumed all kinds of trash. The quantity of what was in this animal's stomach is mind boggling. They should do an anti-litter advertising campaign with this picture. It was very affecting.

One of my all time favorite photographs was included in the exhibition. It's a photograph of a chimpanzee touching Dr. Jane Goodall's hair. It's a beautiful moment that a photographer happened to capture.

The exhibition included several videos highlighting certain photographs and the photographers that captured the shot. This was the most interesting component of the exhibition.

In particular, I liked hearing the backstory behind a picture of farmers in Australia experiencing a drought. The picture was of a farmer and his children. The farmer was excited to check his fields after they had a rain storm. He was optimistic heading out, but when they arrived at the fields the area was still dry and damaged. The farmer was keeping strong for his two children, ran out around the truck, where the photographer was snapping pictures. She managed to get a candid shot with amazing framing using the truck's mirror. The video component really highlighted the story behind the picture.

As great as the photographs are, I wish that there had been more about the photographers. I find that the story behind the picture is often more interesting that the actual photograph. I wanted more of the journalism and not just the art.

We spent about an hour in the exhibition. I enjoyed viewing the incredible photographs, but was left feeling like the experience was lacking. It was almost as if they just threw the photographs up on the wall, without giving enough attention to the meaning behind the photos or to the photographers. Not terrible, just lacking. It's worth the trip if you can get discount tickets.

Official Information on 50 Greatest Photographs Exhibition

Las Vegas- June 2013, Mob Attraction

Having heard great things about the Mob Attraction at the Tropicana, Dan and I purchased discount tickets through the Tix4Tonight booth at the Town Square Mall. I'm glad we did, as this was one of the most entertaining things that I have ever done on a Vegas vacation. I'm glad that we got a discount, but it easily would have been worth the full thirty-three dollar admission price.

The Mob Attraction is highly interactive, with several actors sprinkled through the exhibit. This is not an attraction in which the visitor is a passive observer, you are thrown right into the story and given a task by a mob boss.

From a discussion with the sales person at Tix4Tonight, I knew to expect to high level of interaction. However, this knowledge made me a nervous wreck throughout the entire exhibit. I treated it like a Halloween maze and kept expecting to be startled. There are many sections of the attraction where you are walking down dark, seedy streets with blind corners. If you are like me and can't handle being startled, rest easy, as nothing will jump out at you. It's just creepy and atmospheric.

SPOILERS AHEAD.... DON'T READ IF YOU PLAN TO VISIT FOR THE FIRST TIME

You enter the Mob Attraction through a doorway in the gift shop and are transported back to New York in the 1920's as an immigrant coming to America. We were given a passport to hold, which initiated interactive elements as we walked through the exhibits.

The atmospheric gift shop. It reminded me of Disney's Tower of Terror.

While walking through the docks, we read about the early mobsters in America during the 1920's. One particular stand-out was known as the Black Hand, a crime syndicate that would kill when their extortion tactics failed to work.

The black hand on the immigration sign...or maybe just my shadow

The "immigration officer" was really an employee taking a series of green screen "passport" photos of us. She has us do a series of poses and I figured that it would just be to sell us an expensive souvenir at the end of the attraction. It was. However, the pictures were also an interactive element later on and they let us email one of the pictures to ourselves for free. Cool deal.

The first stop in New York was down some dark alley to a speakeasy, where we knocked on a door and gave a password to encounter our first actor. He clued us in on how he was moving alcohol during prohibition and told us that the mob boss had a special job for us. We were to meet the boss at a cafe down the street.

We walked through winding mock streets that felt like being on a movie set until we were intercepted by the Boss' body guard. He checked us out, made sure that we didn't have a weapon like an ice pick and then led us over to the boss, who was sitting at a cafe table.

The boss invited me to sit next to him and he grilled us on our loyalty and skills. He determined that Dan could work with transporting alcohol and that I could help out as a waitress at the speakeasy. He gave us cash to bribe the police officer, who had been watching us the entire time.

We got to the Police Station and the officer did not believe that we were just tourist. He grilled us for about ten minutes and showed us a picture that he had...

The picture he had didn't have the new paper bit on it, it was just jail picture to stick with the NY/1920's theme.

Apparently, we were criminals, but he could be bought off with a bribe, so we slid over the cash. All of the actors were great, but the police officer was particularly hilarious and quick with comebacks. He had me laughing and I was flustered trying to come up with good responses to his questions. I love watching improv, but I don't like taking part in it!

We walked into the jail to learn about police corruption.

The attraction then shifted to gambling and the Mob taking root in Las Vegas. We walked through a series of rooms, each with holographic video components featuring actors like James Caan and many cast members from The Sopranos. Each room featured a different component of the mobs business in Vegas, like how they skimmed money or how they dealt with cheaters in the casinos.

Mobsters looking towards the future in Las Vegas

After many, many trips to Vegas, Dan finally gets his picture in front of the famous sign!

After going through a series of small rooms, the attraction space opened up into a more conventional museum layout. This section was dedicated to personal artifacts of famous vegas mobsters, including one who liked creepy clown pictures.

Read this...love the bit about the blonde

Old slot or as Dan calls it "Fruit Machine"

It was easy to spend a lot of time playing on the computers that showed the growth on the Vegas strip. The computers allowed you to click on a year and watch buildings pop up on Las Vegas Blvd. It also gave information on the properties. We took a picture of the web address to spend more time checking it out at home. Take a look!

There was a section of sort of artsy/ sort of kitschy portraits of mobsters.

We watched a video about how the mob is portrayed in Hollywood and their influence over the movie industry.

Moving towards the end of the attraction, we found a dark room with video screens and interactive detonators that allowed us to virtually demolish casinos. There is something about watching enormous buildings implode that is mesmerizing.

We turned the corner to find a smashed case and things took a turn for the sinister.

We walked into a long, dark alley with a mysterious man waiting at the end in the shadows. As we approached him, he told us that the boss wanted to see us and led us into a room with a holographic movie screen. The boss came on the screen and we were told that we passed the trust worthiness test, but before he could finish speaking with us, there was a shoot out. We were caught in the middle of shoot-out. I was super nervous because the employee at Tix4Tonight told us that she got shot in the end and that it physically hurt. It's just bursts of air and doesn't hurt at all. It may have been mildly surprising if I had not anticipated it.

The attraction dumps into the same gift shop in which we entered with an employee waiting to wrangle us over to look at our pictures.

We had a fantastic time. It's a very creative attraction and the interactive elements are well orchestrated. We visited on a Saturday morning and the place was super quiet. We had the first half of the attraction completely to ourselves, which gave the actors ample time to interact with us, making it feel like an upgraded experience.

The signage in the museum is often repeated in multiple areas, which I thought was a great idea for crowded days. The first two-thirds of the exhibit are timed in such a way that it would maximize crowd movement. The Mob Attraction was very well planned for maximizing the visitors experience.

It has just the right blend of entertainment, education and interaction. The Mob Attraction should be at the top of the Vegas to-do list for tourists. It's an exceptionally fun way to spend a few hours.

Official Website for Tropicana's Mob Attraction

A special shout-out to Dan's co-worker, Maria C. Thank you for telling Dan that I needed better pictures for my blog. Dan took me to Fry's Electronics in Vegas and bought me a pink Sony Cyber-shot. The Mob Attraction was the first place that I tested out my new camera. Unfortunately flash wasn't allowed in the exhibit, so I didn't get the best results. I'm looking forward to practicing with my new camera and getting better pictures up on my blog. Thanks for reading Maria and thanks for planting the seed in Dan's mind for the camera!