My Travel Playlist

I was in middle school that Christmas. The Christmas when I unwrapped my super sweet duel cassette stereo. It was love at first sight. I immediately dove  into my shoe boxes filled with cassettes, carefully evaluating songs to see which ones were worthy to be on my first mix tape. 

So many years later, I still like making mix tapes, although now with the advancement of technology, they are called playlists. My tween and teen mix tapes were filled with angst and unrequited love. As an adult, I like making playlists to energize and inspire. 

As we were planning our trip to Colorado, I realized that I didn't have a playlist to get me excited about travel. I have Disney park music, and I always listen to Bob Marley before an island trip, but I didn't have a general, let's-go-on-an-adventure- it's- great- to- be- alive playlist.

I wasn't sure where to start, so I reach out to others for suggestions. I posed the question on twitter. I got zero responses. Fortunately, I am a member of the Budget-Minded Traveler Facebook Group. I asked for travel playlist suggestions, and boy did I get responses. After sifting through numerous songs, I created My Travel Playlist. 

1) What We Live For (American Authors)
        - I actually heard this song playing in a store at the mall and knew it had 
          to be on my playlist

2) Renegades (X Ambassadors)  (sorry Joe Hughes if you read my blog)

3) Go Big or Go Home (American Authors)

4) Day to Feel Alive (Jake Reese) 

5) I'm Born to Run (American Authors)

6) Something Wild (Lindsey Stirling, Featuring Andrew McMahon) 
        - I feel like this song pretty much sums up the past few years of my life 

7) Just One Day (Mighty Oaks)

8) On Top of the World (Imagine Dragons)
     - This one was recently added. It reminds me of being in Colorado.

9) Horchata (Vampire Weekend)
      - I love the lyric, pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals. It reminds me of the 
        time we were having dinner in Costa Rica at Rockin' J's. Someone yelled, 
        "feet up," and everyone lifted up their feet as a big crab scuttled through the                    restaurant          
          
10) I Wish I Could Go Traveling Again (Stacey Kent)
       - If you like jazz, I highly recommend Stacey Kent's 
         Breakfast on the Morning Tram Album

11) Good Life (One Republic)

12) Old Pine (Ben Howard)

13) Follow The Sun (Xavier Rudd)

14) Fly Away (Distant Cousins) 

15) Paradise (Coldplay)

16) Good To Be Alive (Hallelujah) (Andy Grammer) 

Do you have a favorite travel/it's great to be alive song? Comment below and let me know. I'm always looking for more to add to the playlist. 

The Welk Resort is my Cup of Dish

The Welk Resort? Is that somehow related to Lawrence Welk, you might ask. Why yes, yes it is.

Like Walt Disney, musician and band leader Lawrence Welk valued family togetherness time, but instead of building a theme park like Mr. Disney, Mr. Welk built a family resort in Escondido, California.  

The resort is huge. It is split up into five different areas, Villas on the Greens, Melody Hill, Broadway Hill, Harmony Hill, and Mountain Villas. Each section has its own vibe, its own pool, and its own recreation center.

There is a "downtown" main area to the resort that includes a couple of stores, a mini-Starbucks, a Pizza Hut, and the resort's restaurant, the Canyon Grill.

There is a theater where guests can enjoy a Broadway show or an illusionist show.  There is a golf course and tennis courts for those who crave sports.

On the whole, the resort has a very Kellerman's from Dirty Dancing feel.I tried to keep a lookout for Johnny and Penny.  There is an entire range of activities scheduled throughout each day.  For kids there are games by the pool and even a film shooting and editing class. Adults can taste wine and fondue in the afternoons. There is a farmer's market on Mondays, dancing under the starts on Tuesdays, a family scavenger on Thursdays.  There is no need to leave the resort, you could spend a whole week there and have plenty keep you occupied.

A week of good old fashioned family fun was not our goal however. We used the resort as our base camp so we didn't partake of the activities, though I do regret missing the farmer's market because it sounded impressive.

Our suite was located in the Mountain Villa's section.  

Although we didn't visit all of the sections at the resort, I think we lucked out. The Mountain Villa's seemed to be the nicest section.  It was at the edge of the property, away from the hustle and bustle of the busy resort. Our room had a balcony that offered some great views. 

We were across the parking lot from the pool and recreation area in our section, which made walking back from the pool area late at night convenient. 

We were usually out and about during the days, and the chilly mountain air was not conducive to swimming at night, but we did use the hot tub as much as we could.

Our suite was clean and had ample room.  There was a kitchen, living room, and dinning room area.

The bed was super comfy, a bonus as we spent most of our days being physically active. There's nothing like falling into a cozy bed after a full day walking.

The bathroom was large, clean, and had a wonderful shower.

The biggest downside to the resort is its location.  It isn't close to any major attractions.  It is a 45 minute drive to San Diego so you have to plan and pack up before setting out for the day.  If you forget something, like a camera, you can't just nip back to resort for a minute. At the end of a long day, you still have to drive back to the resort.  In some ways however, the distance is also an upside.  The grounds are lovely and peaceful. 

After a day of dealing with attractions and crowds, it was nice to come back and chill out in the hot tub, breathing fresh air, listening to the sound of chirping crickets mixed with the sounds of bubbling water. It induced an instant feeling of relaxation.

We were grateful to Mr. Welk for creating such a beautiful resort.  I think his objective of creating a place that encourages togetherness has been achieved. We certainly had a gret time there together. It was lovely, quiet, and relaxing, all of the things that are exactly my cup of dish.

Extra Note: If you don't quite get the title of this post, google Welkims. They are a pretty good time. 

Martians, Marshmallows, and Music

Saturday started off with one of my favorite events of the year, International Table Top Day.  

For those of you not familiar, Table Top Day, promoted by Geek and Sundry and their show Table Top, is a day for people to get together to celebrate and play board games.

As in previous years, I celebrated Table Top Day at AllThings Fun in Berlin NJ.  This was the first year that Shannon joined me.

The turn-out for Table Top Day was great. The place was jumping.

Lots of people were playing games.

We started out by playing a round of Martian Dice. 

Martian Dice is a slightly more complex version of Zombie Dice.  It was a quick, fun, easy game, made all the better by the fact that I ended up the winner.

Speaking of quick, fun, and easy games, next we played a few rounds of Tsuro.  We own Tsuro and love that it’s easy to explain and play.

We use Tsuro as a warm up game to give everyone a chance to turn on their board game brains before moving on to something more challenging.

We were excited to run into our game board enthusiast friends, Josh and Len, at the Table Top Day event.  They invited us to play a card game called Guillotine with them.

Guillotine was yet another easy to pick up, entertaining game. 

It was so fun, we ordered a copy for our ever growing game collection.  

Lastly, we played Batman Love Letters. 

I played original Love Letters before  and liked the game. Using Batman characters made the game extra special.  A shout out to Pete who was really nice and talked us through the game as we played. 

We probably would have stayed longer, but we had to jet to ensure a punctual arrival to our dinner reservation. Before leaving we placed the tickets we earned playing games into the red cups of winning.

During dinner we found out that I won a preview copy of a game called Dark Seas, and an exclusive Table Top Day set of Dix-it cards (I love Dix-it).  

Shannon also ended up winning the Dix-it cards too.We both put tickets in the cup with the hopes that one of us would win them. It was a terrific event, as always.

For dinner that evening, we made a reservation at Jamonera. 

We adore tapas and have wanted to try Jamonera for at least a year. We had-

Bizet

Complimentary Olives

Meat and Cheese Plate

Stuffed Dates wrapped in Bacon

Radish and Fava Bean toasts

Scallops and homemade Sausage

Meatballs

Sundae topped with a toasted marshmallow

White Peach Sangria sorbet with rosemary shortbread cookies 

Everything was wonderful.  We love stuffed dates and declared Jamonera’s stuffed dates the best we have had so far.  We look forward to going back in the future to sample more of the menu.

After dinner we made our way to Philadelphia’s Academy of Music.  

This was actually our second night in a row visiting the Academy of music. We were there the previous evening to hear the fantastic Sufjan Stevens.

We were back, this time to jazz geek out over Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea.  It’s hard to describe the amazingness that was seeing these two jazz legends playing together on stage.

Between songs they bantered, chatted with the crowd, and during their last song they encouraged audience participation.

It felt less like a formal concert and more like two friends hanging out, jamming together.  It was the kind of music event that made you feel like music is, and was, and always will be. That music isn’t something that was invented, but it is something that is inside everyone like blood and guts. 

It was a marvelous day.

The encore. The image is terrible, but the music is good.

Musical Matilda-NYC Part Two

After lunch we walked a few short blocks to the Schubert Theater.  

We arrived to Will Call an hour before the show to pick up the tickets we had ordered. 

Our Cast for the day

Someone found where the chalk is stored

When Shannon walked up the man at Will Call stated that there were still plenty of seats available and would we be interested in upgrading our seats at no additional cost. Yes please. This was perfect timing because once we had our tickets in hand, tons of people started streaming in to buy tickets.  We ended up with center seats in the fifth row. They were great seats.

The curtains were Scrabble pieces 

I liked the guy with the pompom hat

Soooooooo excited 

Matilda the Musical is not Les Miserable. It is a play geared toward families (or geeky girls with whimsical childlike hearts). Like the book, it is funny, quirky, and imaginative. Half of the cast is made up of child actors and as someone who has directed children in plays (that didn’t have to be of professional quality), I was impressed by all of the kids in the play and their various directors, choreographers, etc… I was calculating the hard work in my brain. 

I only had one problem with the play. I have the soundtrack performed by the original London cast and I listen to it a lot.  During certain numbers I had to fight back the urge to jump up on the stage with an exclamation of,

“Hey guys I know this one. I'm going to join along.”

I assume this sort of behavior would earn one a lifelong ban from the theater so I remained glued to my seat.

There are several girls who rotate the role of Matilda. 

Our Matilda, Eliza Holland Madore, is the little girl who reads the comments to Ricky Gervais in the back of his car in an Audi commercial. She looked so tiny up on that great big stage. 

Matilda has a lot of long monologues to memorize in a British accent no less.  She did a great job and performed the best version of Quiet, one of my absolute favorite songs ever, that I have heard.  My eyes got a bit watery as she sang standing atop a stack of books. 

Eliza was quite excited to get the part of Matilda.

She was fantastic, but during the scenes with all of the kids, my eyes were constantly drawn to, Grace Capeless, the girl who plays Matilda's best friend, Lavender.  

She absolutely lit up the stage and made me believe that she was having the time of her life up there. I wish her a lifetime of theatrical endeavors because I would enjoy seeing her again.  

Since the debut of the musical, Miss Trunchbull has been played by a man. Our Miss Trunchbull, Christopher Sieber, was incredible. 

He was having a lot of fun up on the stage. His trampoline jump into a tumble was quite impressive for a man of his size wearing a tight pencil skirt. I have been binge watching the show Pushing Daisies recently so I was excited that our Miss Trunchbull was played by an actor who was in one of the episodes of the now deceased show.

 In  true Roald Dahl spirit, many of the songs have snarky lyrics, especially Mrs. Wormwood’s song Loud that includes her dancing around in a dazzling sparkly outfit.  

Mr. Wormwood sings a song entitled “Telly,” where he bashes books and sings the praises of the television.  Of course I squeezed Shannon’s arm during the part of the song Bruce where the children make a TARDIS reference (in her biography, our Matlida said that her favorite show is Doctor Who so I imagine she especially loves singing that particular lyric). 

Spoiler Alert-The play allowed me to check something off of my bucket list.  I’ve always wanted to be at an event where a huge shower of confetti rains down on me.  This happens at the very end of the play.  It was very cool and I was ecstatic.

While walking back to the train, Shannon asked if I remembered the part in the beginning of the play when Mr. Wormwood threw his fake cigarette into the audience.  I said I did. The cigarette landed somewhere near our section and people glanced around, but no one could find it.  Shannon then extracted the fake cigarette from his pocket. 

It landed near him.  I was excited. It was a great final birthday surprise to have a prop from the Broadway play that involved a character that had such an important impact on my life.  Now I'm going to wait and hope that the other most influential book when I was eleven, The Westing Game, gets made into a Broadway production next.


Our Cast