Well, It's been a hectic run for us. Trying to figure out our lives together, our wedding plans, where we're going to live, Really all sorts of stuff! We have manages to go on a couple of adventures...But The Mrs-to-be has all the photos right now, so I'll have to post them up tomorrow. I just felt a need to let any, and all know we are still adventuring, we're just BUSY......we have lives! -Anyway, hang tight, and we'll tell you all about our latest adventures (One in Utah, the other was in Montana.)

Thanks for hanging in there, Y'all!

Then this happened!

As of Last wednsday, on our 2 year anneversery, of our first date, we are engaged.
We went out to a nice(ish) meal,
and saw the Green Hornet (recommended)
Then went out front of the cinema, to take photos of ourselves, for our anneversery,
When Bryndon dropped to a knee and proposed, right as the camera snapped a picture, and quite out of the blue, as far as April was concerned!!
(That was a staggeringly long sentance)

April was presented with a Ruby ring, set in a thin gold band with two of the smallest diamonds you've ever seen in your life on either side. -and because she is the best dame in the whole entire world, she loved it!
(Despite the expression n this photo)

Bryndon had always said he would NEVER get married, so the two of us had hardly even discussed the possibility before. A fact Bryndon used to hide his intent to propose for months.
So when he did propose, April wasn't sure whether he was serious. Because of this, her response to Bryndon, down on one knee, looking up at her with Sappy-Eyes, was: "Are you Kidding me?" asked with not a small ammount of cynicism.
Bryndon replied, telling her he loved her, and didn't want to live without her....

And so, there, in front of the Cinema,(a perfect place for it to happen to us) we were engaged.

Bannack Days

As it is winter, we haven't gone on many an adventure as of late; A few day trips, of course, but nothing big....So we have decided to review one of our favorite Ghost Towns: Bannock Montana.
Bannock is an exceedingly well preserved, abandoned mining town. It costs a couple of bucks to get in, but the money goes toward the upkeep of the town, so it's well worth the few dollars asked. There are over a dosen houses and buildings still standing (including a church, school, mill, and the very impressive Hotel Mead.) We've gone a few times, as it's only a couple hours from our respective parent's homes in Idaho.

Each year in July, a weekend event called "Bannack Days" is held (Crazy-creative name, right?) It's supposed to be a "traditional" event, but in reality, while it is fun, It's not all that great, with REALLY bad rootbeer, frumpy ladies in corsets, and Fat, pants-less "Trapper-dudes" with leather knee-high leggings............Excellent doughnuts though. We attended last year, in hopes of seeing really great reenactments, traditional events, and old-timey costumes.

As we had gone to Bannack previousely, we were excited to see what the Hullah-baloo was about; We planned our trip, and made a weekend out of it: We camped, shot muzzleloaders, made candles, roved around town, and tried hard not tho make fun of the poor preformers.

-At night, we drove a few hours north of the town, and found ourselves in butte to see a late movie, before heading back to sleep in the back of the truck, and attend church services in the old church the next morning....................We recommend visiting any other time of the year, outside of bannack days. Although, it was worth it to take the Very fun, and informative, Mill-Tour.

Until next time!

Washington

We went to Washington.........Okay, it was over a month ago, and I stayed there for a while to attend a digital art school, and April flew up a few times to visit, and drive home with me in the ol' truck, but it was still an adventure/series of adventures. and it was the last one we took.........and it's 2:30am, and I'm bored.
This post is all about the trip UP to Washington, not the visits from April, or the trip back, JUST the trip UP.

Our route took us through Oregon, and Idaho, we could have made it in 14 hours, but it took us 19 because we kept stopping and exploring small towns and random spots on the way.
We stopped in a boss little town in Oregon, called Baker; an apparrently old milling town, full of victorian houses and buildings from the 30's....not to mention the old mill itsself.

When we finally got to Washington, it was pretty late, or early....at any rate, We decided to hold up in a motel for the night, and get to my new diggs first thing in the morning. We found ourselves a howard johnson, and ate a pretty average contenental breakfast the next morning....Afterward, we stopped for some gas across the street; I was baffeled to get a "Green" grocery bag from the attendant at the station, one which, it read, was good at any Safeway.........I was at a shell station........This wouldn't be my last experience with the whole "Green" Garbage in the state of washington.

Anyhow, Once we finally got the truck unloaded at my apartment, and met my friendly-hipster roommate, we headed to Seattle.



We went to all the cliche tourist spots: Fisherman's warf, Ye old Curriosity shop......though oddly, not the space needle.
We went into a hep Antique shop where April bought a very fine yellow Suitcase from the 60's with only one questionable stain on it!



after all that noise, We rode the ferries across to bainbridge Island, where we went to a crazy lil' historic Dutch town, on the Ferry, we made rediculous asses of ourselves, by running around, dancing, singing, and watching a gal try to take "Jumping Photos" of herself.




From Bainbridge island, we drove to the olympic peninsula to explore all the backwoods-ey parts of Washington. It turns out, a bunch of old fisherman have old beat-up boats on their properties. They were really cool, and a lot of fun to explore.


We went to my Hermit-grandfather's old property, where I used to spend my summers all growing up. I made friends with a newt I found in the woods,



and we talked with my grandfather's "Neighbors" and listened to them regale us with memories of my grandparents, while WE tried to fight away their cat in the most subtle and polite way possible.



we spent the rest of the day exploring the mountains and small towns around there, got ourselves lost in Olympia..(a horrible city) drove all the way around the puget sound and back to my apartment in Woodinville. The next day we went BACK into seattle, and litterally drove around for 5 hours trying to find a parking space before just leaving back to Woodinville and indulging in what April refered to as adequately mediocre pizza......Frankly, I think that was being a bit generous. But the serving staff was REALLY friendly!
some random shots from the trip.

High-YAH!

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Wow, we decided to make a blog......why? Our lives are fun, and let's face it......yours isn't. There are thousands of REALLY boring blogs that people read everyday. Here's the thing, we are adventurers, explorers......we're kind of a big deal.
Our adventures are tops and we want to share them. Our goal is to see the entire United States together..Fifty-Nifty-United-States. So far, we've seen 8 together. Not alot, but not bad considering we haven't even been together 2 years.

In this blog we want to share reviews of films, music, ghost towns, and other crap.....I can't concentrate, we are watching "The money Pit"

So our focus is on Tom, and not here.....this will likely be a common theme with us....um, distraction, not Tom.

We're planning on displaying stories and photos from our previous adventures to start things off, and then we'll probably do that throughout this blog, when times get slow.
Now, to get you started, here are a few shots from our previous adventures.

The Brothers Bloom

We've kicked off our little review site here with a review of a bad movie. I really didn't want to, but I needed to get the IronMan 2 thing out of my system.

So now I'd like to move on to a much more pleasant review. The review of ONE of our favorite films The Brothers Bloom

It's a little older, about a year, but it's amazing, and hey, you can go rent it as soon as your done reading this; THEN you can hate yourself for not just buying it outright.

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that Truely fires on all cylinders, from the Writing and Acting to the Art Direction and Score, The brothers Bloom is one film that leaves us feeling Completely satisfied.

The movie opens with a nice expositional background on the history of our main protagonists (the movies namesake, of course) Light hearted writing in this introductory scene masks a more serious undertone, setting what turns out to be a theme for the entire film.
This movie is fun, witty and well paced. It's a Con-Man film and so much more.

The movie takes place all over the world, to beautiful, and romantic locations, to which the Cast travels by equally romantic means: steamship, train, '83 Cadillac misrepresented as a '78......The travels themselves are a lot of fun.

The visuals (meaning cinematography, art direction, wardrobe, and anything involving visual communication) in the Brothers Bloom are masterfully shot, Always convincing, and brillantly understated, They draw you into the films MANY settings and at times can even leave you confused as to what Era the film is even taking place. The sets are vibrant, while the characters are most often in muted, or monochromatic attire, creating a beautiful, but not overpowering contrast.

The music in this film is Perfect, from the sentimental theme song, to the surprise Kat Stevens balad, every song suits the scene, mood, and exotic setting perfectly. We are afficianatios of musical scores, and this movie passed our strict screwtany with flying colors.

Finally, the cast and characters. In reality there are 4 leads to this cast, the brothers, their female, Japanese cohort, and their "Mark," a female shut-in, epileptic, photographer, and self-described "Hobby collector" All the characters are very intriguing, and bring a unique tallent and personality to both the Con-Crew, and the film. Every roll is played convincingly, no matter how unlikely the quirk or outlandish affectation, somehow they always manage to sell it as perfectly reasonable, and even normal.

The Final Word: If you enjoy good Cinema, if you like a few clever twists in a plot, if you appreciate a film that maybe doesn't fit the Hollywood standard, of what a movie SHOULD be, but can appreciate a great film for what it is, Skip renting this one and just BUY IT!

Ironman 2

Wow, Let me begin by saying Both of us Thuroughly LOVED the origonal Iron Man.
It wasn't a profound, or prolific film, but I don't believe that every film should try to fit the same catagory. Ironman 1 was a good popcorn film, with enough plot, drama, and humor to keep you interested, paired with a cast of characters whiich played their parts convincingly.

Ironman 2 was a Grim disapointemen in Every aspect. We waited in line for the 12:00 premier, we were both excited, but knew the film probably wouldn't be as grand as we were hoping. It was evident from the trailers, that "2" was going to be a little more "cheesey" than the first, and that Micky Rorke couldn't perform a russian accent to save his.....well, Career. What we didn't expect was the Overwhelming Camp, the shallow and uninteresting humor, and the boring and flat plot.

The film opened up with a large expo which is revieled will be going on for an entire year........there are no words.
This cheesey scene, it's blairing Ac/Dc, and cheap humor set the tone for the rest of the film.

The plot felt convoluded, and rushed. We were introduced to a few new characters, and the back story of minor characters from the last film were explored further......yet, not enough to care about any of them. There were just too many threads and not enough time in the flick....plus none of them were really interesting anyway.
Aside from these complaints, It really felt like the writers were trying to convince us the characters were still the same ones we had fallen in love with in the last film. Regretably, they weren't. Too many changes to the characters made even Tony Stark feel like a bit of a stranger.

The cherry of the cake of disapointment with this flick was the fact that the film lacked severely in the area of drama and conflict. Every time we were introduced to an adversary, or faced a delema, it is beaten or resolved before the true effect could even set in. There was no secret way to solve a puzzle, no difficult decision between love and greater good, just no soul to this film, whatsoever.

Here's our final word on this one: Pass it up. Just love the origional. Let it be your go-to film when you want a good popcorn movie, and try to convince ourself that they never made a sequel, that SOMEHOW managed to completely ruin the most promising super hero franchise of all time.