The Mandarian Orange Show Episode 291- Couch Nerds, or: A Very Flat Tire Easter

Hello and welcome to episode 291 of the Mandarian Orange Show.

I'm Sylvekio.

And I am Janelle, Vekio.

We are rapidly approaching 300.

So fast.

So fast.

You know, I was looking like we're close to 300.

We're little over 10 years.

If you do the math, we have average about like biweekly, which is, you know, I mean, we

try to do it closer to weekly during the regular school year, but then on vacations and stuff

it's smaller.

That's not too bad.

Yeah.

It's a pretty good average, I'd say, over 10 years.

That's pretty good.

So we're rapidly approaching 300.

Like I said, we've got some plans in the works, we've been talking about some things.

Very exciting.

But we're definitely open ideas.

If you guys have anything that you want to see or something, you think would be fun for

the 300th.

Send us an email on my day at orcaldedemail.com.

We've got so much to cover because we're back from spring break.

Yeah, we better jump right in.

Straight into the news.

First of all, you can join our Patreon.

Oh, good.

And our Patreon is free to join.

So sign up because you get a lot of extra content.

And if you want to do some paid tears, you get a lot of extra stuff.

That's patreon.com slash mandarin orange show.

So you can also write to us at mandarin orange show at gmail.com.

And you can message us on Facebook under mandarin orange show.

You can Instagram us at mandarin orange show.

So do those things.

Very good.

Yes.

We also have, of course, a Facebook page, Facebook and a group, Facebook, just personal profiles.

Do you want to hunt us down?

We haven't maxed out on friends, so feel free to send us a request.

I don't know what the max is.

But yeah, we got a lot of fun stuff.

A lot of good things to join us at, of course, Instagram, et cetera, et cetera.

YouTube, all those things you can find us on.

Some of which are more active than others.

Instagram and Facebook are your best bet.

Let's be real.

Okay.

We also have an Amazon storefront, Amazon.com slash shop slash my vacation pants.

And that's the thing where you can go on there.

If you click through the link, you buy something like you would normally buy, doesn't that's

being special?

Although we do have a suggested list of stuff if you're interested, then we get credit

for it.

And if we get a report that you bought something anonymously, of course, we'll talk about

it on the show.

We need to talk about the snorkel mask.

We need to put that on our storefront.

That's true.

Just bought a new snorkel mask through Amazon.

We had such a hard time with a snorkel mask on our trip.

We knew we had to take care of it.

The problem is I have a big face.

I have a big head in general.

So like when it comes to things-

But not the biggest head in your family.

I don't have the biggest head.

I thought it's a big head, but it's not that big hats are tough, snorkels are tough.

Because a lot of them, even if it says like large or extra large, it's got to be just

the right shape to fit on my big head.

But there was this snorkel on cell that had a 5.0 rating and people said how comfortable

it was and the viewing and they showed pictures and I was like, those people look like they

have big heads.

Yeah.

And it works.

Now, I also have a large cranium, but I'm not just full of myself.

Anyway, yeah, check out our Amazon thing and then we got to move along here because we

have so much to talk about.

Yeah, let's go.

So we have some news news.

Some pop box presents.

We did some before spring break.

We got another one coming up this week with Dan Sterling.

I think I'll have this episode edited and out by them, but if not, it'll be on Facebook

and then later on YouTube, you can check it out on the pop box music page.

Dan Sterling, always from England.

This is our first person from England or anywhere in the like European region.

We've had people from Central America, from the Caribbean, from Australia, on the show,

of course, all across the United States.

And it's still going to be the same time it usually is.

Yeah, because he's like a night hour record super late.

So that's cool.

I offered him to move it around and he said, no, he didn't eat this, so it's going to

be cool.

He's, it's going to be a fun one.

Okay.

We are going to talk about our spring break trip in my vacation pants segment.

Yes.

But a couple of other things that we've done since then, because we've been back for a

little bit now.

We're finally back into being able to record and stuff.

It's been crazy.

Audrey and Luke are working on Audrey's next play.

She's written and directed and not Lucas starring in.

Luke was cast.

He knew the director.

So the schedule's been wild with all that stuff.

We also went down to San Diego.

We went to another thing for the playwright's project.

Yes.

Down there.

It was like a cool event they did with one of the alumni winners.

Yes.

Josefina Lopez, who also is famous for having, or probably most well-known widely for having

written real women have curves, both the play and the movie.

So she did like a seminar thing and Audrey got to go down and meet her and make a bunch

of more connections and stuff.

Meanwhile, we got to hang around Point Loma.

Check out the college and the town went to book off and get some books, which I always

like to do.

No favorite.

Some music and stuff.

We also had our second Easter because our first Easter on actual Easter was like a travel

day and it was.

We were.

We'll talk about it.

We're not going to say details, but it was.

For me and it was a day.

It wasn't much of a celebration and reflection time.

It was more of a like, ah, time.

Yeah.

So we did second Easter and it was, it was a lot more Eastery.

It was.

It was fun.

All right.

Well, we've got to like, move through this thing and one of the most important parts we've

got to get to is our listener mail.

You got mail.

Who wrote us?

Well, it has been a little while, but we got an email from our frequent writer and

her bed.

Yay.

We love hearing from frequent writer and her bed.

All right.

Well, we heard from Ben.

He actually wrote to us at our Facebook page, which is one of the good ways to write to

us.

And he wrote, he actually did it.

I think right before spring break, this is another one of this ones where the timing,

unfortunately, it means it's a little delayed.

But here's what he said.

Hey, there, friends.

Here's what I did with the postcard you sent me.

I think you'll still weaselly be able to figure out who it is.

Even with the redecorations, now I've got to get some context.

Yes.

Ben, as you know, is not only a frequent writer, but he's also a Patreon supporter.

And he is a paid Patreon supporter, so he backs at a level where he gets stickers in

the mail each month, which is very cool for him.

But I mixed it up one or a month or two ago, I guess it was maybe two months ago, instead

of sending stickers, I sent a postcard.

Which is another one of our tears, I just found a funny postcard and I thought it would

be fun to send to him.

Yes.

So I sent him a postcard and what it was is on one side, that's got the postcard part.

We wrote a little note.

And the backside, it was like a black and white drawing of Ron Weasley from Harry Potter.

I don't know why.

I just thought it was a really funny picture of it and stuff.

And so I wrote to him and said, we can't wait to see what he did with it.

And he sent us a picture of his redecoration of it.

And I'm going to show it to Janelle right here.

It's pretty funny.

That's Ron Weasley.

Wow.

And he put some of the stickers that he's gotten from other packages on there.

So it's pretty epic.

It's pretty epic.

We'll have to post that in the group.

So yeah, I'm going to put this in the group.

I think that'll be the best context for people to be able to see.

Yes.

So if you're listening to this and you want to see what Ben Drew, his little creation

here, go to the Mandarian Orange Show group on Facebook.

The group.

For Mandarian Orange Show group.

Yeah.

That's what it's called.

Yeah.

So then he continues looking forward to hearing about your latest adventures.

And I'm curious about your itinerary for summertime fun.

OK, so I'm going to stop there.

We're going to go over the adventures we just had in vacation pants.

I guess we'll probably mention our summertime fun in vacation pants as well.

So we'll answer that in a segment in a little bit here.

Then he says, what movies are you looking forward to seeing for the summer blockbuster

lineup?

Have anything in mind?

Well, I am excited.

Is Spider-Man the Summer?

Spider-Man, yes.

That is that's the number one for me.

So I'm very excited.

I don't know.

Devil wears Prada 3.

Hmm.

That first of all, it's two.

Just because like the posters are a little confusing.

We have three spokes on the devils.

And like I'm the little one.

And high hill.

Yeah.

So it confused me.

No, I'm just kidding.

I watched that movie once.

Mandalorian for the Mandalorian Grogu.

Yes.

I'm not a fashionista though.

Yeah.

I never saw the first one.

I'm not saying it wouldn't.

It was good.

But.

Yeah.

But Mandalorian is going to be exciting.

Mm-hmm.

I'm also personally excited for Masters of the Universe.

Yeah.

That looks fun.

OK, I wasn't sure.

Because we saw the trailer for it in the theater the other day.

But I didn't get to talk to you about it.

No, that looks fun.

I think it looks great.

And then has she run Princess of Power.

And he says I have the power.

I was like going into it.

And I was like, if he doesn't say I have the power, I'm not watching it.

And then they're like, oh, the power.

And I was like, I'm in.

Well, fish out of water.

Yeah.

It's got battle cat.

It's got Skeletor.

It's got Mana War.

I mean, looks fun.

It's great.

Let's do it.

So those are my, those are the top ones off the top of my head.

I'm sure there's lots of other good stuff too.

But that's the like first ones that come to mind.

Yeah.

Then he said we had an early blockbuster movie this year with Project Hell Mary.

I've read the book.

Have you?

We haven't.

I haven't read the book.

But we did see the movie.

So good.

We were actually talking about this because Luke went with a friend.

We brought a friend of Luke's with us to the theater.

And we're talking to his friend's parents.

And they had not seen it yet and didn't want to go.

Because they hadn't read the book yet and they were going to.

And I do love reading a book first.

But sometimes I like to read the book afterwards too.

And I wanted to see this in the theater because it sounded really.

Isn't it the Martian?

I did not read the Martian and I saw that as well.

But you didn't even read it after?

No.

Although I did.

I have a copy of it now to read.

I think you should read it and tell me if I would like it.

That's a good plan.

Yeah.

Because I really liked the Martian and I really liked Project Hell Mary.

And I need to know if you would like the book.

Yeah.

Well, I will.

I'll do that in particular about my books.

I've been, you know, occupied with several reading projects.

So I've read a lot of stuff lately.

But yeah, I want to read them.

But sometimes, you know, like I didn't want to miss this being the theater.

So we got to see this anyway.

He said, just saw the movie this past weekend.

Would be curious of your thoughts.

If you haven't read the book, I highly, highly, highly, three highlies recommend it.

It's amazing, amazing, amazing.

Three amaze.

Many said no spoilers.

Yeah.

So yes, we're not just willing either, but we loved it.

The movie.

Yeah.

And I loved it.

You loved it, right?

Mm-hmm.

It was like so good.

I mean, I won't say it again, any spoilers, but I laughed.

I cried.

I was in awe.

It looked amazing.

The whole jam bit.

And it was very unique.

Not at all.

Like what I expected it to be or how I expected it to play out.

So very, very good.

And I'm definitely up for reading the book.

I'm sure, you know, as with any time with the book, I'm sure there's way more to it.

And there's nuance and depth that wasn't possible to get onto the screen.

But it also just looked so cool.

I just loved the way it was.

It was.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved it.

It's great.

Yeah.

Let us know.

He didn't say that he liked it.

He said, amazing, amazing, amazing.

Yeah.

So I think that means he liked it a lot.

I think that means that.

Yeah.

I'm going to use my context clues.

So, and that's it.

So we'll look for in the group.

On Facebook, the picture that Ben sent.

And thank you so much, Ben, for writing to us.

We love to hear from our listeners.

You can be like Ben and write to us on our Facebook page.

Or you can send us an email at mandarinornshowgmail.com.

All right.

And now it's time to move on to the next thing.

And that's going to be my vacation pants.

Put on your vacation pants.

Ben asked some questions directly about my vacation pants.

So it's good.

We'll answer his questions in this.

Put on your vacation pants.

We got a lot to go over.

We're going to have to, like, we're not going to do what we did

with our summer vacation break this up.

We're going to talk about our entire trip over one one segment here.

A glorious episode.

We did go on like, it was an over two week spring break trip.

Yes.

There's a lot.

We do a lot.

But tell us, start us off, original.

Where do we go?

All right.

We did a 12-night cruise through the Caribbean that started in Galveston, Texas.

And ended in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

But we took a couple more days and strolled around the Florida Keys

and National Parks, Everglades, Biscayne National Park.

And even went to a national preserve.

And some real spoilers for the end of the trip.

I thought you were going to go in order.

Well, I'm not like you.

I don't understand.

You could just jump to the end.

But I'm not saying the overview, but then we're going to go into deeps.

So like, when you did the overview of Star Wars, you're like, well, Luke, you know,

they blew up the Death Star and stuff.

So let's talk about the movie now.

Well, I could because everybody seemed that way.

All right.

Well, anyway.

So first off, we flew out at LAX.

And we flew, we went with your parents.

Yeah.

And our kids.

Just before.

So there's six of us total traveling.

And on the way there, we're getting ready for takeoff.

And the pilot comes on and says they have to fix something.

He was like the most honest pilot.

Yeah.

He said in great detail, every single thing they were fixing, which in one way,

it makes you feel good that they're being open.

But in other way, it was like, I mean, you could have just not said it.

Now I'm thinking about all the things that you're saying.

And he kept like saying, we don't like it either.

We want to get out of here.

We want to get out of here.

They removed it.

They're checking the wiring.

And we're like, oh, my gosh.

Is everything okay?

So they would not let us off the plane, but they took us back to the gates.

And then they let us walk up and down the jetway.

The jetway.

Yeah.

Because they said that once you go out of the jetway, they have to completely reborder

everything.

And it's a whole process.

And it costs them money and it costs everyone time.

But we got free snacks.

But how long we were delayed for a long time?

Like our flight from California to Houston.

You said it was like, we were on the plane for like seven hours.

We're on the plane for over seven hours.

Like we're going to flown to Europe almost like, I mean, not quite.

But it was a long time to go halfway across the country.

Yeah.

So we finally got to Texas much later than we know.

Yeah.

And we flew into Houston.

And we basically had time to do what a burger.

And go to our hotel and get up for the cruise the next day.

Yeah.

We had had a little bit more.

I mean, just, you know, we were going to do a little more relaxing there, but whatever.

That's fine.

So then we went on the cruise.

How about you take over?

All right.

Well, we went with Princess.

Now, first of all, the reason that we wound up doing this, what's twofolds, you found a good deal.

This was 12 night cruise.

And it was, I don't know exactly, but in the 300s range per person.

Because the, I got an email that they were having a sale for cruises 75% off plus third and fourth person sell free.

So we went on and we looked at the cheapest itineraries with the most days.

Part of it was exactly during spring break.

Part of why I think it was cheaper.

It was a repositioning cruise, which are often cheaper.

And it was the final trip they ever did out of Galveston.

Princess had like a hub in Galveston.

And this was their front like they left from there and then shut down Princess.

They're not selling out of Galveston anymore.

Which, I mean, especially for people in Texas, that was a bummer.

Big old flag of Texas up when we went inside.

But it worked out well for our price.

So that's why initially we set this up.

Now, the other thing is on the trip was our 23rd anniversary, wedding anniversary, which is pretty cool.

We celebrated that.

My dad's 70th birthday.

And coinciding with all of this is my parents' 50th anniversary.

Yeah.

It's actually a little bit later, but they decided to do a big celebration trip to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

So they went on this cruise with us.

Then they hung out in Florida with us.

The niece stayed on.

They're still in Florida right now.

And they're leaving later on this week to go on a 16-night one back through

the Panama Canal and all the way back to California.

So they're doing a huge old thing, just the two of them.

Because it's their 50th and my dad's 70th.

I mean, that's a big.

That's some pretty big milestones.

So we were just on the first two weeks of their like six-week adventure.

Yes.

So it was really fun.

Anyway, so that's kind of the setup.

That's why we did what we did.

But also, it went to some amazing places.

Let's see.

We'll talk first of all about the places we went.

Because we went to five ports on the cruise.

And we're just going to talk briefly about each.

And I'll tell you the stats for each one.

You ready?

Love stats.

All right.

So the first one we went to was Cosamell, which is an island in Mexico.

Of Mexico.

It is part of the state of Quintana, roo.

I believe is how it's pronounced.

That's how the guy said it when we were there.

Or something along those lines, probably not exactly that.

But it's not rude, which I thought it was before.

So we've been there before about 20 years ago on a cruise.

Our kids have never gone there.

So there's a new Mexican state for them, which is exciting.

While we were there, we did something different on each island, by the way.

A different form of transportation.

On Cosamell, we actually did a cruise excursion, which we rarely do.

Very, rarely do.

This is only the second time we've ever paid for a cruise excursion ever.

Yeah.

And we've been on a couple that, like, my parents paid for one that we went on before.

Yeah.

I think that's actually it.

This is the second one.

But the reason is that it was super cheap.

And it was basically what we wanted to do anyway.

And it was about the same cost of what I found for us doing it.

And, you know, but they provided the transportation.

So it was nice.

So basically, we just went to one of the resort beaches that was near there.

And hung out at the beach day.

And they provided the transportation, which is what we wanted to do.

But it was really easy to do it through them.

And it was about the same price.

So we went to, it was islands was the brand.

And it was funny.

It wasn't like a hotel.

It was just like a beach specifically for like cruise.

Cruise passengers, which I really liked because then you're not competing with hotel guests.

It's just crew people on their cruises.

Yeah.

It wasn't really like much for snorkeling.

It was like a beach day.

But it was really fun because they had like these floats out there.

They call them like, you know, like a jump pad.

What do they call them?

I can't remember.

Something funny.

The kids will remember and say, why didn't you remember that?

Yeah.

What was they called?

Bounce pad jump pad.

I can watch.

No, that's okay.

Anyway, but like a big floating platform.

And they had a bunch of them out there.

Like, you know, you could swim on and die about them and stuff.

And we wound up like the four of us.

Oh, because my parents didn't, you know, they did some different things.

They're definitely, you know, my dad's just turned 70s.

So they're doing different things physically than we are.

So swimming out to like dive pads wasn't really their thing.

Which is understandable until.

Yes.

So anyway, so it was just the four of us.

And we wound up just hanging out on that dive pad and swimming around and playing on it and stuff.

Like the whole day.

Which we got some summer.

It's such a bummer because we did a really good job.

We applied sunscreen really well.

And Ben actually texted me a while.

We were on the cruise and like reminding me not to get sunburned.

But we each had like a little area that we miss.

It's so hard because you know, like you think you're doing a good job.

Like we were really thorough.

But when you're in the sun all day.

Yeah.

Like it's easy to forget a little bit.

So I even went and reapplied.

But you had like your shoulders.

Yeah.

That you like missed.

Like we did it.

But then you like missed some patches.

Audrey had like her legs that she like her upper like back, you know, upper thigh kind of area.

Luke actually didn't get too bad.

I don't think he got anything.

But on that day I got weirdly like around my eyes.

In your lips.

And then my lips like yeah.

So just as little patches like everything else was fine.

But just the little things that you miss, you know.

But man was it worth it.

It was super, super fun.

Yeah.

We just spent the whole day.

And we saw like a guana as well.

We were there.

It was really beautiful.

But that's all we did.

We just swam and hung out the beach.

Which is what we wanted to do.

It was a perfect beach day.

And the water was like a bathtub.

Yeah.

So like nobody got cold.

We didn't even like like we stayed the whole time.

Because you could kind of leave when you wanted to.

They had buses leaving.

We were like the last bus out.

And we knew we could because we were booked it with the ships.

Right.

They can't leave us behind.

Exactly.

Yeah.

I mean, normally I don't want to, I don't want to pay more than I would be able to arrange for it myself.

But in this case, we didn't.

We didn't have to.

So that was pretty great.

And then we went, the second island we went to was Aruba.

And none of us have been to Aruba.

No.

And so that was very exciting.

You know, of course, I've already updated our spreadsheet since we got back.

By the way, with all of our stuff.

And at this point, Aruba is the furthest south we've ever been as a family.

Right.

And on Aruba, why I had, you know, done some research and found that like the bus, like the public bus system there is really like affordable and very reliable.

So cheap.

It was like $5 round trip, 250 each way to get to a beach.

I looked at, you know, there's tons of beaches obviously.

But I looked at like the best one for snorkeling.

And we hopped on the bus, like right there, easy walk from the cruise ship.

Hopped on the bus, 250 each way per person.

Yeah, it was like across the street.

And like we were like the aisle there, the beach we wanted to go to was like at the end of the line kind of, you know, like goes and flips around.

And we were the last people on the bus.

So I went and talked to the bus driver and told him like which one we wanted to get off that.

And he's like, well, I don't have to just drop you off at the bus stop.

Is there a specific part of the beach?

It's kind of a long section you want to go to.

And I said, well, we want to go snorkeling.

I don't really know where like you probably know better is there like a good spot for snorkeling.

I'm going to take you where I would go if I was snorkeling, like this is where I go to snorkeling.

We're like, okay.

And so he dropped us off at this spot.

And it was the best.

I think it's the best snorkeling we've ever done.

And we've snorkeled a lot of places.

Even Hawaii.

I mean, it's on par with anything that we've ever done in Hawaii.

Yeah, it reminded me of that snorkeling cruise out to Molakini.

Yeah.

But if anything, that would be like the only one that could maybe.

Yeah.

It was so spectacular.

The water was warm.

There were like caves everywhere, which I didn't swim through, but I was really tempted to.

I was told he was told no.

Because you could see out the other side.

He thought he could swim under, but I didn't mean I'm getting trapped under.

We saw literally tens of thousands of fish.

Like if you know what a bait ball is, like giant swarms of like little fish that swim around, they're everywhere.

And we swam through all of them.

Like everywhere you go, there were just thousands of fish.

Plus we saw all kinds of other big fish.

We saw squid there.

We saw, um, I don't know, there's big, long, like trumpet fish kind of things.

There were like three feet long.

I don't know exactly.

We saw eels.

So eels, all kinds of crazy stuff there.

And it was just, it was so gorgeous.

It was perfectly clear water.

You could see forever.

And the guy was right.

It was like the best spot.

He's like this is the spot in.

It was only like, I don't know, like a minute and a half walk down to where the actual bus stop was.

Oh, on as galore, this like,

like toys looking lizard, like such cool wildlife.

And there was like nobody there.

We saw a few people, but like,

that's where we met our friends.

That's true.

We met some friends from Canada, our Canadian friends.

They were also on the cruise with us.

So we bumped into them later.

Anyway, it was spectacular.

And what was the name of it?

It was mo...

I wrote it down.

Right.

So that we can say, I mean, I don't know, like I guess.

I don't want to like make it too famous, but the listeners to our show are privy to our

information. They deserve to know what the name of the beat was. It was Malmock or something

like that. Malmock Beach. Okay, Malmock, although I think I heard them pronouncing it like Malmo

more, but it's M-A-L-M-O-C is how you can look at it on the map. I don't know. Oh, M-O-C-K?

Yeah. No, I think that's just how you wrote it. Okay. I think it's just M-O-C.

Well, take the public west there. It was fantastic. And we were like down to kind of at one

end where it was like easy to enter for snorkeling. And there's all these little like

coves that you can go in and out of. And it's all roped off. So it's like safe for swimming.

Like I just can't believe that squid. They were like 40 squid just chilling in the

coast. And they all kind of hung out in the same place. So like we went out and then went back in

and they were still there. I was able to point it out to our Canadian friends. Anyway,

that was seriously some of if not the best snorkeling we've ever done.

Loved it. Where are we going next? Next. Okay. The third island we went to. Okay. So now we've

gone on like a cruise bus. Then we went on like a public city bus. Two different things.

Like a cruise shuttle. Yeah. And then a public city bus. So the third island was Curacao.

Which is even more southern. That is the furthest that we've ever been and still is. Like we

never went further south and Curacao. We're looking at like right just north of South America.

Right. Yeah. Pretty awesome. So none of us have been there before either. So this is another

new one for us. And what we did here is we rented a car because what I found out was first of all

at least according to my internet research, the public buses weren't quite as reliable and they

didn't go the places I wanted to go to. Right. I read that too. Because one of the things I really

wanted to do on the island is there are some caves on the island that we wanted to go for. Yeah.

And the short excursions were outrageous. Oh yeah. And then you like only spend a little bit of time

and yeah. Well, again, we rarely do short excursions. Because I want to do what we want to do. Yeah.

Um, and then there were some beaches we wanted to go to. But I couldn't figure out like what was

like the best one. So we thought we'll just like drive around to some beaches. So we got the

rental car. First of all, the rental car place is like on in ports on the dock in the port. Like

it's the first thing you walk to. It was super easy. Oh, and super cheap by the way. Yeah. Like what

I was reading is a taxi would have been like, you know, $50 each way to get to like a place

to the caves. And it was like less than $100 to rent a car. Yeah. It was $75. And then I tacked

on all the insurance and stuff because we were in a foreign country. So it was a hundred bucks

out the gate. And it was like the easiest thing. It was easy to drive there. And that was for a small

SUV. And that was again, just the four of us. We all of the beach or all of the the port days we

did separate from my parents again. So this one, we went to the caves and they were amazing. What

was the caves called? Hadoe. Hatoe. H-A-T-O. Um, all that's probably not how it's pronounced. But

they were amazing because it was this unique mix. It's a volcanic island. But there's also like layers

of limestone. So it's actually like, you know, cave formations, the lactites and stalagmites and

flowstone and stuff. And it was a warm cave. Yeah, which is, but like an active living one. Yeah.

You could see like soda straws growing. There were bats in there and we saw multiple bats.

So many bats. There's interesting human history with both like the native people of the islands

and then later when it was like colonized and the like enslaved people like escaped and hit

out in the caves and stuff. So all kinds of interesting human history. It was really awesome.

So I really glad we went there. I wanted to go there bad. Then we drove basically around the

whole island because it's not very big. So we just did sort of a loop around the whole island,

stopped at a couple beaches. And the one that we went to is this one kind of amazing

with sea turtles. And we weren't sure like we had our snorkel stuff with us. But it kind of like

read like mixed things. But it was like, this is the place if you want to go see sea turtles.

So we got there. And first of all, there were sea turtles. There's probably 50 sea turtles

swimming all around that you could just see from the shore. There's a little dock built out

over the water and you can walk onto it and look down and see them. And there was a lot of people

snorkeling around them. But there wasn't like reef or anything. It was just sort of a sandy

bottom and everyone just swimming around right next to them. Well, we found out why there were a lot

of sea turtles. Because the local fishermen like pull the fish out of the water there. And then it's

like a little like covered hut and they clean the fish and then throw the guts back into the water.

And so I guess that attracts like, you know, the sea turtles. And so like people are swimming

around there. It had, you know, a bit of a fish gutty smell. We it was really cool to see all the

turtles. But we're like, we don't need to get in the water. We're just going to enjoy this like

look down the further down the beach weighted. But we did not need to go swimming in it.

I saw a guy like come up with a snorkel and it was like a fish gut like draped off of his mask.

I was like, nope. But we can see him fine from the shore. So it was a fun experience.

It's great. And Luke's scampered. Yeah. He's scampered on rocks and stuff. So

So that's the main thing that we did there. I mean, we drove around the whole island with

a couple grocery stores. We also, yes, the grocery store was amazing. Like I heard like five

different languages being spoken inside the store. They let me pay in like US dollars. But I got

changed back in. I think they were called gilders? Yeah. Or was it Florida? It's one of the

countries from Princess Brad. It was so cool. So I just love going to a local grocery store,

getting out of the port, going to somewhere all the locals go. That was a really cool experience.

So now we've got a rental car to add to our means of transportation. And again,

it's just I love the the freedom that gives you to go anywhere. Yeah. Definitely off the beaten path.

Yeah, it's really fascinating history with the language. It's outside of Cosmell, which is obviously

part of Mexico. The other four islands we went to are all part of the former Dutch Antilles,

which like in 2010 became independent like nation states under the kingdom of the Netherlands.

It's complicated and stuff, but really, really interesting history. And as a result,

they all speak like at least three languages and many of them four or five languages.

Makes you feel like, you know, my four years of Spanish in high school. Man, I probably should have

like tried harder. But anyway, okay, island number four we went to was Antigua. I had a really hard

time before Antigua. I could not figure out what was the best thing. Wait, real quick though.

We need to talk about something that happens when we had gotten back on the ship.

Oh, that's right. This is a side to detour from the islands. Just real quick.

We went through our evenings. I think I should tell the first part because it happened to me

because we were going through our evening. We went to dinner. We hung out. We played games.

We went to a show. We went up in like sat by the buffet sort of area and like played card games

and stuff. And we got back to the room and we got a phone call almost as soon as we got in the room.

And it was someone from the security desk and they said they had a pouch for us

down there at the security desk if I could come down and get it. And I'm saying I get to tell

it because I'm the one that went down and got it. We were already in our pajamas and stuff,

but I put my clothes back on. And the pouch that they had was all of our past ports and credit cards

were in a little pouch that you had brought along. And it had been turned in. And I'm like,

oh my gosh, we assumed that I left it in security. Yeah, because you have to like scan back

on the ship, you know, go through security. No, the middle tech, you know, when I got down there,

I found out that somebody, Janelle, had left our stuff in the rental car and the rental car,

someone from the rental car place, like turned it in before the ship left port. Luckily,

the ship didn't leave to like 11. Yeah, it was like a late, it was a late night that we left.

So yeah, so somebody like. So thank you. Thank you. I don't know who that turned it in because

that could have really ruined things for us. No, there were $42 in cash in there and the person

who returned it, I believe helped themselves to that. That's fine. I checked the credit cards.

No, no fraud or anything. There's no fraud. I think they just were like, well, I'm going to take

this little tip for myself. And if they had called us and said, hey, we've got this on the

shore and it's $42 fee to like return it to your ship before you leave, we would have been like,

yes, please. So, you know, it would have been nice. They could have taken the whole thing and

now returned it at all. Yes. And I'm very thankful. They got it to us on the ship before we left.

So near disaster. Yeah, that's right. Still love Kira. So well, I mean, again, they were someone

who knows the bachelor was shot there. Yes, I mentioned it. We saw the Dutch colonial buildings

that they shot by. Yeah, we drove down to the downtown area so you could see all the bachelor

locations as well. We know. But they didn't go to Halo caves or, um, yeah, we went to like

way cooler places. The beach, the fish cut beach. Well, I mean, we saw the turtles.

Okay, so then the next island we went to was Antigua. And this is the one I've started to say that

like had a very hard time, you know, doing research before I just couldn't find anything.

Like the excursions were way too expensive. Taxi's were expensive. Rental cars. It was

difficult to rent. They said, Oh, yeah, I will rent you a car. And then you show up and they

like have to drive you to the airport to get one. Yeah, it wasn't right there. And it was a whole

like holo blue. Just, you know, I was like, you know what? Like maybe we'll just be like a walking

tour because there's a little town there. We'll just maybe we'll just walk around. That's a new

form of transportation. So we're just going to follow our noses. So we got off the ship. And

right on the dock, before you even go out through like the security gate, we saw a sign that said

water taxi. And I'm like, that's interesting. I wonder where that goes. So we walked over to where

it said water taxi. And again, we brought like all our swimming stuff, snorkel stuff and whatever.

We walked over to where it's in water taxi. And I asked them like, you know, where do you guys go?

And like how much is it? And they told us that oh, because I had written down like the names of

some of the beaches that might be cool to go to before we got off, you know, before we went on the trip.

But I just wasn't sure what was the best way to get there. And one of the beaches that I had

written down was the beach they go to. And it was $20 a person round trip round trip. And they

took you on like a little 20 minute boat ride like up the coast. And this is like a speedboat that

I turned sideways. Like this was not your regular water test. No, and he was like having like

Indiana Jones driving it up and down. He'd go towards some rocks and like pull it tight. He

was hilarious. Super funny, like comedy show. And then also took us like a little tour and saw

like the old fort on the water and like cannons and up on the castle walls and stuff.

And then got to the beach. It's been a great day at the beach. And then he told us to hang out

with his friend Tony. So we got beverages at Tony's. Yeah, it was just like, it was perfect. It was

the best like, oh, okay. Guess what we're doing today. Now we did have an incident there as well.

That quiet is bad, but all the only one to lose something. Luke, when we got to the beach,

went in the water. And I didn't even mention it. I'm like, don't forget to get your glasses off.

Because usually they wear contacts when we go to the beach. But we didn't know what we're doing.

So he's like, I'm just going to wear glasses. I'll just take them off if we go snorkeling.

So we got to the beach. He's very excited about the beach was gorgeous beach. Like just fantastic.

And first he was just waiting in. And then he just got so excited. He dived into the waves.

And realized he's a lot of his glasses on and they fell off. And we did not find them again.

We looked for a while, but like, you know, it was the ocean. It was, and it was in the waves part.

It was definitely like not clear enough to see down there. We even tried like putting snorkel

masks on, but you know, it's no visibility where the waves are splashing. Look is a beachy kid.

Like we just watched this video where he says we're at the beach doing some tide pooling.

And he's all, but can we go to here? He was like five or something and we're like, what do you

mean? We're here. He's like, no, but can we like go swimming here? I'm like, there's a,

he doesn't count if we don't go swimming. So he counted. Can we go? Yeah. So he got to swim.

Fortunately, he brought a backup pair of glasses. He had back on the ship. So it wasn't a total disaster.

But it was very stressful for a little bit. But we're like, don't stress. That's fine. Mommy left

our passports and credit cards and cash on another island. So, well, sneak peek. There's

somebody else who lost something. Yeah. Well, mine was that went down in value, though.

Anyway, that day was spectacular. Antigas gorgeous and super fun. So now if you're counting,

we did a shuttle bus. We did like, you know, city bus. We did a rental car and then a water taxi.

And at the last place, the last port we went to was St. Martin. But it was the Dutch side.

Because it's like the island that's split and half half of it's the French side half of it is

the Dutch side. Although we came to find out it's easy to go back and forth between. We didn't

on this trip. But we had been to St. Martin for you and I have it. The kids had not. And none of

us had been to Antigua. So we had two new ones for the kids and well, five new ones for the kids

and three new ones for us. The St. Martin same kind of thing where I had like several beaches I

wrote down. And we were just going to take a taxi because the taxis were pretty well priced

there. Which is weird because like the price is really varied in the different. Yeah,

in a different Caribbean. Like some of them, like it was like $50 each weight. For here,

the taxi was five bucks a person. Yeah. And they're like regulated. Like we won't charge you

more than five bucks a person. Yeah. And they have like a list of like, if you're going here,

this is how much it is. It was five bucks. And so we went to one of the beaches that I said I

wanted to go to. And this is the best part about. So it's five dollars each way on the taxi,

but still way, way cheaper. And one of the excursions that they had on the ship that we had looked

at. But it was like $120 a person. But we're like, that would be really cool. But they take you out

on a snorkel boat. And then there's like a sunken submarine and a sunken helicopter that are

probably placed there to help like, you know, as an artificial. And then also for tourism. And they

bring you out to this place and then let you snorkel around and some of their fish and stuff too.

But we went to the beach that was like near there. And like we basically, we it was about like,

I think about a half a mile out to there from where we were at. And we just swam all the way

along the beach and then all the way out the rocks to the place where the submarine and helicopter

at gorgeous snorkeling. We saw rays. We saw more squid. We saw all kinds of like amazing fish

and stuff. Oh, lobsters. We saw lobsters. We swam out all the way. And this is all four of us

did this all the way out to the helicopter and the submarine. There was like a ton of tourists

out there because all the boats were out there that had taken in there. And we did it for five bucks.

Yeah, it was free. The beach was free to go to. So we just swam out there and it was pretty great.

Gorgeous. Once again, super fun. And there was another little like local grocery store there that

we can get drinks. Also the very, very nice taxi drivers both ways. I got to sit in front with them

and had really fun conversations with them. So, but I was the one that lost something at this one.

This is too bad. I had like in my bathing suit pocket, I had a like I had two different things

of like a chapstick. Because my lips had like, you know, I got sunburn on that first one. And I was

like really careful with putting like lots of like sun protective lip balm on it. And my sun

protective lip balm was in my pocket and like fell out because I forgot it was in there and I was

swimming. So yeah, I don't know where it was. The bottom of the ocean. I know. It's so bad about

that both environmentally and I really needed like some protective lip balm. We couldn't find it.

Like that that one you needed. We couldn't. Yeah, fortunately that was our last stop in the Caribbean.

Like, you know, so I was able to to find something back in the US. But

Anyway, like I said, much less value, but it was important. Something that I needed though.

And I was like, but it was the last one. So Audrey was the only one that didn't lose anything. Yeah.

So it was the islands were amazing. Super fun experiences. Yeah. Okay. Now we need to talk about

briefly what happened on the ship. I mean, mostly like you know the types of things that you do

on cruises, but we had some highlights. 12 nights. There's a lot of activities and stuff. We played

a ton of games with my parents did a lot of fun stuff. What about the first one I wanted to

mention was they had a James Bond trivia. You know, Luke and I recently watched James Bond movies

all the way through. Yeah. And we won. Yeah. And it was like Luke and I were like the main team.

But everyone, you know, you were allowed to have a team of six. So I mean, I think I don't think

anyone had any answers that Luke and I didn't, but you know, we played together. So Luke got to

like go up and accept their prize and it was a bottle of champagne with Lucas 15. Obviously, you

know, he doesn't look. He doesn't look 15. Everybody thinks he's older. But we don't really drink champagne.

So we just brought it back to the room and left it. We're like, what are we going to do with it?

Because we'll have an occasional sip of champagne, but I don't know what I'm going to do with

the whole bottle to myself. So then later on, there was a different trivia one. And this one was just,

it was like a top five. Which we thought was fun, since that's a statement we often do on the show.

You had to guess they they had a list of five. Like, what are the, the five tallest mountains?

Right. And there would be one missing. You had to say what the missing one is. So in this one,

Audrey kind of took the lead. Again, we had like a team, but Audrey was like the leader and we won.

So she went up to accept the prize. And it was another bottle of champagne. So we brought that

back to the two bottles of champagne. Now finally, well, there was one other game that we played

that I got to go do. It was called Yes, No, which we are going to steal and adapt and adopt on

to our new game. It's going to be a new game. We don't have time on this episode to do it. But

it's amazing. It's going to be ready. It was amazing. You got called up for that. I got called up

for that. And I did not win that. But it was really fun. And we wound up playing it on our own

and kind of adapted it for our own with our family like the rest of the trip. So super fun. So we're

going to do that on the show. But finally, the last game show that we participated. Oh,

it's because they have like a theater that was like a game show theater on the cruise ship.

Which I've never seen on a cruise ship. Super cool. They did a the newlywed game. Although it's

not just for newlyweds. It's called the nearly way. Nearlywed. Anyway, we've done these in years

past, but it's been a long time. But it's, you know, where they ask the wife one question and then

the husband's out of the room and then he comes back in. And you know, if they answer his match,

then you get points, right? But it's really funny. Yeah. Occasionally goes into some PG-13

categories. Yes, the kids didn't want to endure that delay. Went to team group. Although my

parents didn't stay in there. Yeah, they always do. So out of the whole room, like this was like

a huge theater. And there was the line was so long to sign up for it. They picked three couples. One

that was like newlywed had to have been like less than five years. One that was like over 40 years.

And then like that middle category. We were in the middle category. And we got picked for the

middle category. And I mean, I'm just gonna say it. We were the stars of the show. And not just

because I say so, but like the rest of the crew people came up to us. You guys were the stars

of the show. You guys were the best. Everyone was cheering at us. I was so funny. And we basically

just did an episode of the museum. It was a man there in Orange Show episode live. And we won

not only like the popular vote, but we actually won points wise. And we got another bottle of champagne.

And some necklaces. Yeah, the like jewelry company like gave us a whole bag of like the little

jewelry like necklaces and stuff. And a trip to the fancy Italian restaurant. Yeah, like the

what he calls like the premium restaurants. Yeah, but you know, we have to pay extra. It's not

included. It's like $55 a person. And we so we got to do that one meal. And it was fancy. Like

it was we've never done one of the premium ones before. But it was a fun way to do it.

It was really fun. It was good. But I would never pay. No, I don't think it was a more

person. I don't think it was any better. In fact, one of the things we talked about was that when

you have like you go to the same meal time every night, your waiter and the wait staff like really

get to know you. And so you know, it's fun. And you have banter and you become friends. I mean,

if you're nice people, you become friends of them and you talk with them and get to know them

a little bit. And so there's like a lot more just kind of personal connection. And you know,

I mean, the people were nice. And we loved our waiters too. But they just, you know,

it was our one time we were there with them. And it was kind of just formal and I don't know,

it was fancy and fun. But the food was really good. But so is the food in the main dining room too.

So I don't know. It was a fun experience and a great way to do it, which was totally free.

We had a lot of fun in the main dining room making deals with each other so that we didn't

overdo it. Yeah. Like so if you wanted to get a thing, I wanted to get a thing. We both get it

and split because they'll let you order like multiple meals and stuff. But we were really trying not

to gain a ton of weight. I will say now I, I waited at the end of, you know, we got home and I

went up 1.6 pounds before an over two week vacation. I feel like that's not too bad. Yeah.

And I'm already back down to like what I was before. Yeah. I still got way to lose. Don't get me

wrong. But you know, that's not too bad. You said you did pretty good too, didn't you? Yeah, I broke

even. That's great. I mean, it was within like 0.2 pounds of each other, like barely any change.

That's really good. So, you know, because we did a lot of like exercising. We didn't go to the gym,

but we walked around. So we did so much swimming and which is the best way for me to exercise.

Because I don't even realize I'm exercising. Well, since we don't really drink champagne,

what we wound up doing is just giving it to like the, the room steward that like, you know,

clean the room. Like he was super nice and we're like, as the last day, I was like, would you

like like these? Because we're not going to use him. He's like, oh, it's amazing. And so he was so excited.

He was excited. So we just give him. Because we were going to give it to somebody else on the

ship, but might as well give it to somebody who would appreciate it. Yeah, we didn't want to just

give it to like another cruise pass. And you thought we'd be nice to give it to someone who

would have fun with it. So that's what we did. And that pretty much sums up the cruise. I mean,

it's a great experience. A lot of fun. We do like princess. I really do. I think they're,

they're definitely up there for the top cruise line. So then we went to Florida as you mentioned

earlier. Spoiled. We had basically three days in Florida. But the first thing.

Did we pack a lot in? Because the first day was the day we disembarked

from the ship. We got off. We went and got rental cars. We drove south. And like the same day

that we disembarked, we went to Biscayne National Park. And now this is one that we've been to before.

The kids were really little when we went. I think Luke. So we recreated videos. Yeah, Luke was like

one and Audrey was three, I think. So technically they'd been there, but they didn't even do junior

rangers back then. So they got to do makeup and do junior rangers this time. And most of

Biscayne National Park is either underwater or you have to do like boat tours to get to it.

So we went to the visitor center and then there's like a long boardwalk out into the water

that you can walk on. So some more lizard. So yeah, we just did that. It was not like a lengthy

visit, but it's what we did before too. So it counts. We watched the movie. We watched the movie.

They did junior rangers and we spent several hours there. So it was good. Good little quick visit.

And then we drove to Flamingo, Florida, which is part of the Everglades National Park. This is

all in the same day. And that's the southernmost town that's on like the actual contiguous

United States, Key West, this further south. But the only reason you can drive there is because

of the bridges. It's technically in Ireland. So you know, depending on how you look at it.

But it's also like part of the National Park down there. And what do we see down there? We saw

seven American crocodiles. Including one that like was right there's little docks like in the

little port area. And it like swam right under the docks. Like we were looking straight down at

a giant crocodile. If you check out my YouTube my vacation pants, the shorts, I posted a video of it.

Yeah, you also posted you posted the crocodile. You also posted our snorkeling with all the like

tons of fish that we talked about in Aruba. So you should definitely check out my vacation pants

YouTube and watch the shorts in particular. Recent ones. Anyway, so then we went back up to our hotel.

We stayed like in homestead, which is kind of a central area down there. And then on the second day,

like the one full day we had, we drove all the way down to Key West and back. My parents came

down with us. My parents did all the Florida stuff with us. And it is again, these are all things

that we did more or less when we had the kids there, but they were real little. So they didn't really

remember the Florida keys at all. In fact, one of the home videos we have of the Florida keys

it shows in the back seat and looks like fastest sleep. And Audrey has like a bucket like in her face

and she's like whispering to herself inside the bucket telling stories to herself. This is as we're

driving over the like seven mile bridge. I'm like, oh, that's probably why I don't remember it.

So anyway, it was really gorgeous. If you've never driven down to the keys, it's really not like

it's not that arduous of a task. And it's a beautiful day trip. There's a lot of fun stuff

along the way. We stopped at the coconut K Marina, which is where we stayed the last time we're

actually stayed on the keys. Tell us what we saw there. So we're just reminiscing where we stayed.

And all of a sudden I hear a and I look over and there's a mommy manatee and a baby manatee

swimming into the Marina like right by us. We're so close. And then I assume a dad

manatee and they were eating the seagrass under the pier we were standing on and they were right

there. Amazing. I mean, you can't touch them. But yeah, but you could like you wouldn't

touch them. They were just right there. Again, there's video that on my on my shorts.

So then we also stopped at the Blue Hole, which is like a little freshwater pond area.

Saw some alligators there and some like lots of cool birds and stuff. Some big fish.

We saw the very unique key deer. Yep, rare endemic species of deer

down there. And then we also went by Bat Tower. And this is kind of sad because there's just like

remnants there now. Not really. I'm just kind of a spot where it used to be that we visited when

the kids were little. But then I think it was in like 2017. A hurricane came and knocked it down.

But very briefly the story of it. This guy and he built several of them around like the south.

But the idea was to build this tower, bringing in a bunch of bats and the bats would help control

the mosquito population. But the funny thing is he brought in the bats and they just all flew away.

So the tower is sort of a monument to that futility there. It was really interesting to see

before. And now it's gone. But it's gone completely. There weren't even like ruins.

Just like the patch where it used to stand in the road that it's on Bat Tower Road. So sad.

We went down to QS. We ate at a restaurant. We went to the southernmost point. Although the actual

southernmost point is under construction. So they moved the bells. You can take a photo op.

But it's not even at the southernmost point now. So we just did a drive by and watched it.

We stopped at a place and got keel and pie and we came home. There's actually a really

funny short about that place as well. You should watch that on my vacation. And then finally on

the last day, and this was a home, this was actually Easter weekend. We were going to do Everglades.

Yeah. So we went through the Everglades and we actually flew home from an airport

in the right outside that place. Is that what it is?

No, it's called. It's the Southwest Florida International Airport. So we flew home on that

side so that we could drive through the Everglades on the way out. And also through big

Cyprus national reserve. So we went through there. We made a couple of stops at alligator viewing

platforms and such. My parents were going along with us, but they were just.

We saw 29 alligators in the short time we were there. My parents were just coming along with

us for the wildlife viewing and then they were staying on. But as we pulled out, it's actually

like the first platform, I guess, really went to the one place, right? Yeah. And we pulled out and

we were on like the road. And it's just like a regular, like, you know, small highway that goes

through the park. Wasn't like a rough road or anything like that. And all of a sudden, like

the tire gauge on the rental car, like started going down and it was real low. I'm like, oh no,

I got to like pull over. But it was nowhere to pull over. And as I, you know, I start slowing down

like a lot because it's been them. It was like 60 miles an hour or something like that.

You called your parents because they were driving behind us to see if they could see anything.

And then like within 60 seconds of me seeing that, the tire like exploded. Blue out. Sidewall.

Yeah, not I didn't run over a nail or anything. The sidewall completely erupted. Blue out.

And there was like very little shoulder, just sort of a little grassy shoulder. Even though I

pulled over all the way, we were still poking out a little bit into the highway. And I'm like,

oh my gosh, this is so stressful because first of all, we're on like a time limit to get to the

airport. We were doing this stuff along the way there, but we have to get there in time. Second

of all, it's a rental car. So the, and we don't ever, we didn't get like any kind of coverage

for tires or anything like that. We don't do that. Imagining like how expensive it can be.

And third of all, like we're in the middle of like a big nature preserve.

Far away from anywhere that's going to have a tow truck. So it's going to take a long time.

So you got on the phone with the rental company. Meanwhile, I started pulling all the stuff out

of our trunk to see if it had like a donut, like a spare tire. Sure enough, it had a donut tire

but the lady from the rental car place is like, no, it doesn't have a donut. We're like,

we're like, I'm just found it. And she's like, oh, okay, because she said they could send someone

out. It would be like a $70 fee. And they were charged. And who knows how long it would take them

to get them out to us, right? Because again, we're in the middle of no one. No, well, can we change it?

And she said, you changed it. No problem. So they did not charge us because we said,

well, again, I can also call AAA, but same thing time wise. Right. We were, we did not have time

so I did like the world's fastest donut change. My dad, like, was my support. He helped me out.

And you know, when I was getting super hot and humid, so I'm like, get all over heated. So he

did a few cranks on it and jumped in and helped a little bit. Got the donut chains on there. Let me

tell you like, we were at the side of the road and there was like a creek where alligators could

have been right on the other side. It was like the worst spot to change the tire, but what else

were we going to do? Yeah, that's where, that's what we had to do. So, and the other reason that I was

stressed about time is it's not a real tire. So, you know, between here and the airport, it's 60 miles

an hour and then the freeways are like 70 miles an hour. And you can only go like maybe 50 miles an

hour on a donut. And I kept it at like 45 mostly because we had a long way to go. So we, once we got

the tire change, we pulled into one more visitor center so the kids could finish their junior readers

because they did junior readers at Everglades and at Big Cypress National Preserve and Biscayne. So,

they got all those done. And then we left from there and I just had to drive straight the airport.

We got there in time, but barely. Yeah. So, as we're pulling into the airport, like the rental car

return, you know, they've got those like giant like metal speed bumps. Sometimes they have like the

teeth on them as you're going into the return, right? Because they don't want people to drive in

backwards. They don't want you to like, you know, not get it back out of there. So we go up over

the first one. There's only a single lane that goes into the rental car place, right? And

the car completely bottomed that we're like, we're like stuck. Like I like wheels are not on the ground.

I like tried accelerating and there's they're just spinning. You know, like hopped out. You hop

back. Even though I said you're not allowed to get out, but like we were stuck. I had to get out

and get somebody. And she looked and sure enough. We were just like suspended.

And this guy said he's going to run and get his manager and he like didn't come back.

That disappeared. And cars are piling up behind us.

Because there's only one lane to get in. So they're all just stuck.

And they're like starting to just leave their cars and will their suitcases pass.

They're like yelling out. We got to play in a cast. They could just deal with it.

So you like tracked down someone. The guy came over. He's like, you guys can go in. He's just

gunned. And I'm like, we're bottomed out. I showed him. I couldn't gun it. And he's like,

we'll back up. But I'm like, I don't want to pop the tires. I know you're okay. Well, you can

back it up. So I'm like, okay. So I backed up a little bit. And I was able to like just squeeze

back. And he's like, all right. Now he's done it. And I gunned it. And I was like,

like just tore the bottom up. It's fine. It's fine. So then we got in there. And I'm like,

oh my gosh. Now they're going to try to charge us for this. But they were super cool about it.

Yeah. They put a big X on the way. Yeah. We wrote all these notes about it. And the guy is like,

what happened? And I told him I showed him the tire. How it had like blown out on the side.

And he's like, oh my gosh. He's like, I'm so glad you guys are safe. Like that's really bad.

I'm like, yeah, nobody's okay. And he's like, did you drive over something? I'm like, no,

this is just on the highway driving along. He's like, oh my gosh. So he took off like $50.

Because there's like a $50 one way drop off fee. Yeah. He waived that fee. And he's like,

if you want to contact the corporate, you can probably get more, I don't know if we'll waste our time.

We're not that point is I was worried they're going to charge extra. And they wound up taking it off.

That was that was good. That was good. But man, then there's people behind us. And then they just

bunch of people just abandon their cars there. So who knows? There's a battle mess. But it wasn't

our fault though. Right. Because the reason it bottomed out, by the way, is that not only is it huge,

but because we're on a donut, the car was riding. Right. So. And then we made it into a flight.

But then our flight was delayed. We had a layover in Salt Lake City like less than an hour.

And then they delayed it and delayed it. While the time we got there, we had like a 12-minute layover.

And we had to like run for one of the airports to the other. It was like closing the doors as we ran up.

But we made it. Yeah. We got home and everything was safe and sound.

And we had to rent another car one way rental. And then we finally got home.

And that was our spring break. Now Ben did want to know about summer. And I'm just going to say very

briefly because we have got to like move along here. But we are going to be going to the Pacific

Northwest. We've kind of mentioned this a little bit before. But we'll go into more details about

it in future episodes. But we are going to do some national parks up there. We're going to go

up into Canada. We're going to go on an Alaska cruise in the middle of our road trip.

On Ben's favorite cruise line. Which is Holland America, right?

When we've never been on. So we'd like to know your thoughts on that Ben. Tell us what you think.

We'll go into more details on that in a later episode. Phew. Okay. We have so many things that we need

to go over. We've got movies to talk about as we mentioned. We've got TV shows that we watched.

And board games that we played. We've got a new game to teach you. But we really don't have time

to do all of that stuff. But there is one more thing that we have to do real quick. Yes.

Yes. Because we have been in the middle of our book that we've been reading, our audio book.

So it's time for fiction books. You like fiction books?

Fiction books is one of my favorite kinds of books. Do you like fiction?

That's crazy. I'm never going to have to like fiction.

So we're just going to read the chapter of the book. Both of us read books over spring break.

But for the sake of time, we're going to get right into the chapter. Yeah. We have a bunch of books

to go over. Because we brought stuff to read. And we did our book swapping and everything.

A lot of books to talk about. But yes, for tonight, we're just going to do our audio book.

Because we don't have time. Because it's busy. What chapter are we?

So we're on chapter four. And it's a short chapter. So that's good.

We're reading The Time Trap by Leo P. Kelly. Remember in our last one, there was a big fight scene

between Kendall, the bad guy, and Jeff. All right. Let's hear it.

And Kendall made it off with the jewels, if you remember. They're back in time.

This is chapter four of the time trap. The chapter is called The Creature with no eyes.

Jeff Maria called. He still did not answer her. Remember, he got beat down.

So he's like unconscious. His eyes were still closed. He was not moving.

What should she do? Maria wondered. Maybe she should ask the people of Planet X-12 for help.

There were several people near her right now. They were looking at the pictures on the walls.

No, she knew she couldn't ask them for help. She knew she must not change the past.

And she would change it if she let the people see or hear her.

Was there no one to help her then? Was she all alone and with no one at all to help her?

She faced the facts. She was alone. So she was the only one who could help Jeff. It was up to her.

But how? What could she do?

She remembered the lake that was next to the field of flowers. She had an idea. She ran out of the

museum. She ran to the lake. Once there, she tore a piece of cloth from her uniform.

She put the cloth in the cold water of the lake. When it was all wet, she ran back to the museum

with it. She put the cold wet cloth on Jeff's head. She rubbed his wrists. Jeff moved a little bit.

What? So apparently her like medical thing is to go and get a piece of cloth wet.

And that's going to save him from being beat up. That's weird. And so round about.

Yeah. And also, I mean, wasn't that technically changing the past and also a little bit, you know,

got a fly effect and whatnot? All right. They can't get into that butterflies too big of a word.

No, that's true. She put the cold wet cloth on Jeff's head. She rubbed his wrists. Jeff moved a

little bit. Maria rubbed his wrists some more. Jeff, it's me. It's Maria. Jeff? He opened his eyes.

Maria? Yes, I'm here. Are you okay now? What happened to me? Maria told Jeff,

how Kendall had hit him on the head with a statue. I remember now, he said, he put his hand to his

head. He took the wet cloth from it. Thanks, Maria. He said, thanks a lot for your help.

I think we had better go back now to our own time, Maria said. You're right. Jeff stood up.

He almost fell down again. Maria put her arm around him. Together, they left the museum.

Sit down here on this rock, Maria said. You'll be okay in a minute. I'll go and get some more cold water.

She ran to the lake and wet the piece of cloth. But when she came back to where she had left Jeff,

he was gone. Dun, dun, dun. She looked around. He was not in sight. Jeff, she called. Where are you?

He must have been hurt worse than he knew. Maria decided. He probably just walked away.

He probably didn't know what he was doing. Maria began to look for him. But she couldn't find him.

She called his name several times. She walked along beside the lake. She went to the field of flowers.

The flowers were not singing now. All was quiet. She was almost ready to give up when she heard Jeff

call her name. I'm here, Jeff, she called back. Where are you? There was no sign of him.

Over here, Maria, help me. This is very exciting. She ran toward the sound of Jeff's voice.

She found him near some trees beside the lake. She could not believe what she saw.

A giant creature had caught Jeff. It had features a big word. Yeah, it's a good one.

It had hundreds of long thin legs. Its body was a big blue ball. It did not seem to have any eyes.

It was making a web. The web was like the kind made by spiders back on earth. But it was much

stronger and it was much bigger. Jeff was caught in the web. He couldn't free himself.

Stay back, Maria. Jeff called out to her. The creature might get you too. Maria could not move.

She didn't know what to do. The ugly creature went on making the web in which it had caught Jeff.

This is where we've got the illustration, which I'll post in the Mandarian Orange show group.

For the picture, it's the creature making a web of around Jeff and he's trapped in it there.

It's giving me a hobbit.

No, they'll go back in. Maria knew that she had to act. She couldn't just stand and watch.

If she did, the creature was sure to kill Jeff. But what could she do? She didn't know.

Could she do? She looked around her. I wonder if she's going to go wet that cloth again.

No, we're going to wrap it on his wrist. That's her one-like solution for everything.

Maria, Jeff yelled, get a big stick. Get one that's sharp.

She's such a problem-solver. Well, Jeff is the one that told her to do it, so.

Well, let's not give the woman credit. Maria ran to a tree near her.

She reached up and broke off a branch of the tree.

And again, I thought they weren't supposed to change the path. We really like messing with stuff here.

Now she knew what to do, but could she do it? She wasn't at all sure that she could,

but she would try. She would have to try. If she didn't try, she wouldn't let herself think of

what might happen if she didn't try to save Jeff. There's a lot of like her like thinking about

if she can do something instead of actually like stepping up and doing it.

She came close to the web the creature had made, but she did not come too close.

If the creature caught her, she would die along with Jeff. Her heart was pounding.

Suddenly, one of the creature's legs grabbed for Maria. She didn't see it until it was almost too late.

She jumped back just as the creature's leg touched her. Now two more of the creature's long,

thin legs came at her. Look out, Jeff shouted. He was fighting to get free of the creature's web,

but he could not break free. Maria jumped out of the way again. She felt like she was going to be sick.

She wanted a run, but she knew she could not. She had to stay and try to save Jeff.

Maria knew what she had to do. She got a good hold on the stick and rushed toward the creature.

Be careful, Jeff told her. He couldn't speak very well now. The web had almost closed his mouth.

Maria hit the creature with the stick. She hit it again. She hit it a third time.

It's hundreds of legs reached out to grab her. One of them caught her left arm.

The creature began to pull Maria into its web like a spider would do to a fly.

And that's the end of chapter four of the time trap.

We'll continue on with our audiobook serial reading through of the book next time.

Chapter four, and you guys, it's a very short book. I think there's only like nine chapters total.

So we're almost halfway already. So we've got that to look forward to.

That's exciting.

Well, thank you everyone for joining us. We will be catching you up on all the other goings-on

in the next episode. But there's a big, big event that we had to talk about.

Yeah. A big trip. Super awesome.

Don't forget to check out the pictures in the Man Air Runtral Group on Facebook.

And of course, Janelle's My Vacation Pants shorts if you want to see some of this stuff we talked

about on our trip. What else, Janelle? We appreciate you listening and continue to listen

and continue to be excited about the stuff we have planned.

Oh, that's good. Don't forget to write to us, like,

bend it on our Facebook page or send us an email at mendairnornshow at gmail.com.

And with that, we're going to wrap it up. So for the mendairnorn show, I'm Phil.

And I'm Janelle.

And we talk so you don't have to.

What's that? That's what it is.

You're going to be using the couch here.

Oh, can I eat it?

Gross. I'll do it out of the couch, Chris.

Okay. I got fresh.