Ellicott City

On Saturday Skyeler took me to the historic Ellicott City here in Maryland. It is actually a really cool old town that has a lot of Historic sites. OK so Maryland in general has A LOT of really cool historic sites like battle fields and Annapolis is a short drive away as well. Anyway Ellicott city is a really old farming/milling city.


Above this bridge are railroad tracks!




The old buildings!




An old mill that obviously isn't still standing except for two walls.

Ellicott also has a B & O RR station!




Me in front of the B&O RR.


Skyeler in front of the B&O RR station.





Skyeler visited Ellicott City a couple weeks ago with his photography class and so he knew about the B&O RR. For some reason I didn't put it together that the B&O RR was one of the Rail Roads on Monopoly. CRAZY! So I kinda feel special that I have seen it. Eventually I will go and take the tour of the Rail Road station but it was $6.00 bucks a person. Ya it isn't that much but it didn't even take us 30 min to get there and it is worth it to go back again.

Some of the History of Ellicott City is that it has flooded many many times.


This is a history line showing the year and the height of the waters during each flood. For example at the top in the year 1868 it rose to 21.5 ft and fairly recently in 1972 it rose 14.5 ft.


This is where the levels were at last Saturday. It is actually really hard to believe that the water rose to those heights.

For lunch Skyeler and I packed our own. (Good thing we did because 1 scoop of ice cream was 2.00 bucks) Skyeler wanted to share with me the experience of an MRE! Sky had these while at basic and said they were good. So we picked a couple up at the Commonsary (grocery store on post) and took them with us. Skyeler and I we shared some chili and with it was m&m's, sugar cookies, pretzels, apple sauce, and powers for a cuppachino and coffee. Needless to say we didn't use those.


We did buy 2 but only ate one of them.




Chili was kinda spicy but good. I will admit that Skyeler can make a lot better chili and not to brag to much but I like my applesauce better. But the process of heating the chili is really cool. You put it in a bag and when you pour in the water there is a chemical reaction that basically boils the water and heats your food. It was really cool.

I really enjoyed my time in Ellicott City. I learned a lot and I think I will go back especially since there is tours of a haunted building! That will be going on in two parts until November if any of you are interested.
I am so excited to continue to explore the area and see more Historical cities/towns. It really makes you interested in our countries history. A lot better than reading it from a textbook in history class.

Home sweet empty Home

I know that a select few of you wanted to see some pictures of my place. So I figured I would stop being super lazy and actually do that.


This is what you see as you open the door. The stairs are directly to your left and after to pass the stairs you can either go into the kitchen or open the hall closet.


Sky and I went to Wal Mart the other day and picked up a card table and 4 folding chairs! YAY no more eating on the floor and using the mattress as a table.


The kitchen. I also had to do dishes before I took a picture of it!


The living room. This mattress was serving as a table but now we just use it as a couch.


This hallway leads to a half bathroom (door at the very end) the washer and dryer will go on the left and a door going to the back yard on the right!



This is upstairs. You can go straight into the bathroom, the linen closet is left of the bathroom. On the right is another closet and on the left are 2 bedrooms!

That is basically it for my little place. Right now it is just me and the dog so it can get kinda lonely at times. Especially right after I have to take Skyeler back to the detachment for the night. As of now I only get to see him between 5 and maybe 8:50ish... He also can't come into the housing area.. It is against the rules for him to even step inside the house. (LAME) So we have gone to the lake a lot and I will try to have dinner ready and take with me when I go pick him up. If not we tend to brake the rules a bit and we will come have dinner at the house. Sky also had to come to the house to set up the internet and and help me bring in groceries etc. Hopefully they will never know that Sky comes to the house but I wouldn't put it pass the government to have some kind of GPS tracker on his level tag or something.
I hope the next couple weeks will fly by so Sky can come live with me. It is kinda ridiculous everything we have to do in order to get him to be able to live with me. I even had to take a financial budgeting class. Today Sergeant Bennett has to check out my car and make sure it wont explode or something like that. (he he kidding of course about the exploding) but he does have to look over the car in order for Sky to be able to finish his packet...

Tornadoes in Maryland

Yup, we had some Tornadoes in the area last week. It was kinda frustrating because it was on a Friday and Sky and I made a date to go watch the fireflies. But the tornado warnings made it so I wasn't able to see Sky at all until it was over so for the majority of the time I was home alone. As for us on Fort Meade, we didn't experience anything too drastic. There was a lot of wind and rain. More than what I have ever seen in Utah. Because of the rain we also had an extra flash flood warning as well. Any time we heard the sirens we had to take cover. (I ended up just looking out my window) I think we ended up with a couple of tornadoes but it wasn't anything extremely serious. Some areas north of us reported damages and also in Virgina. Many many people lost power but again as for those on Fort Meade it wasn't anything drastic. Eventually I was able to go pick up Skyeler and he was very worried about me being alone during that time but I lived! During the rest of the evening we had the sirens go off a couple more times. Oh when the sirens go off it means that there IS a tornado. Not just the possibility of a tornado but that there has been one spotted! Here are a few pics and I do have a video but probably won't put it on. These pics obviously don't do justice but the rain puddles you see formed on a relatively small amount of time. Do you think it is Maryland's way of saying hello to me? **~*~**UPDATE**~*~** Every Thursday we get a Fort Meade newspaper and of course today it had information about the Tornadoes that we had last Friday. According to the paper it was indicated that Fort Meade had two very weak tornadoes touch down on the instillation. That was 2 of 10 confirmed Tornadoes in Maryland alone. I think the news this morning (I was watching while getting my car serviced) said that there was a total of 12. That is a record for the amount in one day as well as within the month of June. There was no serious damage just a few fallen trees and some signs tipped over. The newspaper then has a what to do section as well as the difference between a Tornado Watch and Warning. Again all in all it was an interesting experience and I am glad there were no serious injuries. I did find it funny though that my dog had to either be right next to me or hiding in his crate. I think he has small dog syndrome.

Short D.C. Trip

During Memorial Day weekend Skyeler and I went with my cousin into the D.C. area. We took the subway called the Metro and it was kinda fun! We didn't get to really do all that much because I had to have Skyeler back to his Detachment area at a certain time and because I was so new to the area I was stressing. But here are a few pics... We went into the Museum of Natural History and boy is that place big. We spend a lot of time just because we wanted to see everything but alas we didn't. We had to leave because we were hungry... Kinda what happens when you spend hours in one place. But it was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go back when I have more time with Skyeler and we leave early enough to take advantage of the time and area.

City Museum- St. Louis Missouri

Oh my heavens if you ever get a chance to go to the City Museum in St. Louis...... DO IT! I had so much fun and I want to go back again and again. Here are some of my pics. So if you were thinking this is a walk-around and see what is in here kind of museum you are totally WRONG! The city museum is basically a huge jungle gym for adults. (There are kid sections to) but basically the whole point of this place is to explore and crawl through tunnels and go down slides. There are so many slides and if you want to get some speed you have to wear basketball shorts. Miranda and I would have competitions to see who could go the farthest when coming off of a slide and I won hands down every time. I even ran into a couple walls because I was going so fast! There was so much to go do and see. But one of my favorites was the 10-Story slide. I was going so fast down that and of course it just circles the whole time that when I got to the bottom I was so dizzy. It was a lot of fun. The climb up the 160+ stairs is the real but kicker though. But as you can see there is a lot an outdoor section and a ball pit. There are more and more slides and overall it is just an amazing place. If I remember my info correctly it was a project of a bunch of architect students. But basically it is this huge warehouse looking building but they really made it into something. I do have to mention this.. When my friend Miranda comes with her husband Trevor to the City Museum they like to hide in certain spots and scare people as they are walking by. So we had to do that. I think I really need to work on my scare techniques because well I scared them but they though I sounded like a dog..... Quite comical! These pics are only a fraction of what you can see and climb on at the city museum. Please go if you ever get the chance!

Road Trip - Pics

Here are some pics of the extremely long road trip. I wish I was better at actually taking pics at every place but after a while the picture taking did get kinda less exciting.... These two are of my backseat in the car it was PACKED!!! The trunk was even more packed since my Dad packed it for me. I am glad he did because I got a lot more things in the car. This one was when we were still in Utah.... The start of our long but boring flat drive. This is in Colorado and we were trying to make it through the Rockies. More of Colorado. I spend the night with a friend just outside of Denver, so Colorado was split into two days. These two are of Kansas. Kansas was interesting because the highway was really windy and then it started to get really humid. What I really liked about going through this state was that my dad served his mission here, so I was able to update him on the area by sending him pics from my phone and he would tell me about what he did when he was here and what area this was for him and how long he spent. It was really fun for me. I love listening to people talk about their missions. Just Entering Missouri!! Seriously once we passed through a state line it was so exciting because it meant we were closer to NOT having to drive anymore. While we were in Missouri we took the time to go see the new Kansas City Missouri Temple. It was dedicated less than a month when we were there. We also took the time to go see the Liberty Jail. A cool fact is that on my Dad's 21st birthday he actually got to spend the night there. He slept on the floor. He said just move that Mannequins and that is where he slept. I know he had told me that before but I had just forgotten about it. I still find it really cool that he did that and I spend some time in his mission area. While I was in St. Louis we went to the City Museum. (pictures and a description will be on another post). On our way to the museum we passed the St. Louis Temple. AMAZING! The City Museum and the St. Louis Arch. It would have been nice to be able to actually stop and see it instead of just taking a picture as we drove by but I guess that is a to do for next time. This one is Indianapolis Indiana. I think this one is Maryland. I have other pictures on my phone of Maryland but I am not going to worry about it right now. I Hope you enjoyed seeing the country between Utah and Maryland. I know I don't have a lot of pics from St. Louis to Maryland but we were driving at night during most of that time. According to my rough estimate on Google maps I drove 2,310 miles. I think I will eventually try to add up exactly how long it took us. But I would have to consider my breaks and pit stops. It was quite the experience to drive the whole way. I am just so glad that it is done and over with. I am still thinking about what I am going to do on the return trip. I am seriously thinking about shipping everything/selling and just flying home. We will see what happens. I still have 6 months to worry about that.

A perfect afternoon

So today after a headach from driving alone in Maryland I checked Skyeler out and we went to the lake where he played his guitar and we had a relaxing time. I love listening to him play his guitar. It really is one of my favorite things. I could listen to him for hours! I am so glad that I can be with him and we can spend a few hours together daily. It is much but with all we have gone through it is enough for me.