I rode my bike home from play practice Friday afternoon and saw that the car was parked so Dereck was already home. When I opened the door to our house I saw a long stemmed rose and my wonderful husband. I asked what the rose was for, and he said "for you, of course!". Then he told me to get showered and pack because we were leaving for the weekend. Where to? Well Tama Hills! Its an area that is owned by the USAF and is a nature/wilderness area. They have a small hotel, cabins, campground, horseback-riding, and a few other fun things. After having our friends stay with us for about a week, having a weekend alone together (even though its only about 16 miles away) sounded great. Chelsea and George quickly said "Don't worry, we'll watch the dogs for you!", (they were in on it the whole time) so in about an hour we were packed up and on the road.
Tama Hills is 16 mile from base but takes about an hour to get there. Its 16 miles of constant traffic, stoplights, and city. Its surreal. It was fun to navigate our way through the city though, and we never even got lost. As we pulled up to the gate at Tama Hills, Dereck reaches for his ID card and couldn't find it. That's right, he left his ID card on base somewhere (uh oh!). After pulling out 3 picture IDs the gate guard allowed us through and the search for the ID card began. Turns out a friend found it where Dereck left it and would meet us the next day to pick it up... that means another hour drive back to base, but oh well. It was actually quite funny because last summer we did a short weekend trip to Hot Springs, which was about 1.5 hours away from Little Rock. Once we got there we realized Dereck forgot his wallet and we had to drive back. I decided from now on I will make sure to double-ask him if he has EVERYTHING before we go on a trip!!!
So we checked into our room and were pleased with it. It was simple and outdated, but big, clean, and we loved that it was all ours for the weekend. Not even any dogs to wake us up (and they've been naughty lately, so I was excited to have a break from them too!). We ate dinner that night at the hotel then watched some TV and went to sleep. We slept for about 12 hours!!! It was fantastic. Dereck and I felt so good sleeping in until 10am. We had an amazing breakfast at the hotel and went to go get Dereck's ID. Later that afternoon we decided to go to Tama Zoological Park. We both did not know what to expect, but since I hadn't heard much about it, I wasn't expecting too much. However, it turned out to be a very big and pretty zoo. Some of the animal cages were old, but they seemed to be well kept and the animals looked healthy. Also, the zoo itself was very pretty, but SO MANY HILLS! We were exhausted after walking around it all day. I was excited to see Koala's though. I think I saw them once but they were all sleeping in a dark exhibit so I didn't really see anything. This time one was eating and walking around so we actually got to see it! There were also the standard giraffes, elephants, tigers, lions, bears, etc. Another neat thing was the insectarium and butterfly garden. Even though the insect building was so icky... it was also very cool so see so many different bugs safely behind a big thick pane of glass.
The Lion Bus! haha they put meat on it to make the lions lick the windows!
Our Japanese lunch: what zoo have you been to where you've seen Spaghetti and takunaki?
After the zoo we drove back We drove back to Tama and spent about 45 minutes driving around the complex. It used to be an old ammunition compound used by the imperial Japanese Army during WW2. There are a bunch of old bunkers and storage building still around (and very creepy looking!). It was a cool drive through the woods to say the least!
Then we went to our hotel room to shower and change for dinner. Dereck went down into the lobby to ask about a nice restaurant for us to go to. The Japanese man at the counter took out a map and highlighted the route. The route ended at "Dennys". Dereck said, thank-you, but do you know where a nice restaurant is? The man responded, yes, Dennys is very nice restaurant. Dereck realized he didn't understand what we meant so he just asked for a sushi place. We got another highlighted map and headed out. However, this sushi place was like "fast food sushi". There is a conveyor belt that winds around while diners sit at the counter and pick off sushi plates to eat. Each plate was 100 Yen and they total up all your plates at the end to pay. It was not "nice" or fancy in any way, but it was fun! We had a good time together.
Later at the hotel we opened up our bottles of wine and toasted to our 1 year anniversary! Dereck managed to find the same dessert wine that we had at our dinner the day after our wedding (we treated ourselves that day to $30 glass of wine) so it was fun to relive that memory! Ice Wine is delicious!
They next day we checked out (again, after a delicious breakfast!) and headed back home. It was a great surprise and a fun weekend together.
yay! that sounds like a fun weekend and a good way to spend your 1 year anniversary. congrats!
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