Mexico - Chichen Itza

We got up early on Friday morning for a tour to Chichen Itza, a Mayan temple inland from Cancun on the Yucatan Peninsula. Warning: This entry is quite picture heavy!

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It was really, really hot.  Now, I can handle extreme temps living in Phoenix, Arizona where it can get over 120 degrees, but I can not deal with humidity. I was sweating buckets. But seeing Mayan ruins is on my bucket list and now I can cross that off!

The construction of this site amazing. There are many other Mayan temples scattered around, and some are a lot larger than this one (although this one is certainly not small) but apparently, Chichen Itza (pronounced Chee Chen Eat Za) is one of the most sacred. The main and largest pyramid is solid with with a new temple being built over the old temple every time the Mayans adjusted their calendars.

Kimberlee and me

Next, we visited the Great Ball Court. I don't remember the specifics, but basically, the Mayans would have a competion to please the gods. There were two teams, representing different gods and the leader of the winning team would be sacrificed by beheading. Believe it or not, this was a great honor and the sacrificed captian would go directly to paradise. This competition could take days.

The goal was to get a ball through a tiny hoop using their feet. Let's get a little perspective, shall we?

They have to get a ball through that tiny hole. With their feet.

With their feet!!

Entrance to the Great Ball Court

On the side of the Great Ball Court is the Temple of the Jaguars.

The Platform of The Eagles and The Jaguars represent the warriors that presented the victims of sacrifice for the gods.

The Temple of the Warriors is the only structure at Chichen Itza that can actually hold large groups of people.

Around the Temple of the Warriors are the Thousand Columns. At one time there was a roof above the columns and it is believed that these were meeting places.

Indiana Jones Jay

The Ossario, also known as the High Priests' Grave, is built over a natural cave. When it was excavated, human remains were found, but it is not believed to be an actual grave site or tomb.

The Observatory, or El Caracol, is a huge structure that seems to be aligned with the movements of Venus. The top of the Observatory is not perfectly aligned (according to our guide) because only the gods could reflect perfection. Humans were incapable of creating anything perfect and in order to not anger the gods, the buildings show imperfect architectual designs.

The last area we visited is called the Nunnery, named by the Spanish because it reminded them of buildings back home.

On the way out, I snapped a few more pictures of the main temple.

Bucket list: Chichen Itza: CHECK!

If anyone can tell me why my spell check no longer seems to work on Blogger and how I can fix it, I would greatly appreciate it!

Mexico - Arriving in Cancun

I'm back from Mexico! I considered throwing a tantrum in the hotel lobby this morning in hopes that someone would let me stay a few more days. I was not ready to come home!

The day before I left for Mexico, I scratched both of my corneas. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but it was actually a really scary thing to experience your vision getting steadily worse in both eyes over the course of a few hours until your sight is so bad, you can no longer read your cell phone.

So, after rushing to the eye doctor and generally freaking out all day, I ended the evening with icing my eyes. By the end of the day, I was so miserable and my eyes stung so badly that I looked like I was going through a horrible break up!

Yep, that's an ice pack covering my whole face to
relieve some of the inflammation...

I did make it to Mexico and my eyes were significantly better by morning. I was under strict orders not to wear my contacts or make-up and not to go swimming. Bummer. I still had an excellent time and I would love to go back!

The flight was uneventful as was going through customs in Mexico. The airport was fairly uncrowded and so immigration was a breeze. They also had samples of tequila in the duty free shop. I tried coffee flavored tequila, which was actually pretty good.

Why, yes, I will have a free shot of tequila!

Once we got to our resort, Secrets Maroma, we were greeted at check in with a glass of champagne.

This place is absolutely amazing. The rooms are fantastic and everything is included, so there are no additional fees. You can eat and drink as much as you like and trust me, we took full advantage of that.

Just look at the bathroom!

The room is huge!

I'm trying to take a glamour shot of myself.

The view from my balcony.

We wandered around for awhile and checked things out. We spent a lot of time over the course of the weekend hanging out at this table that sits in about 8 inches of water and is right next to the bar.

There's also a ping pong table in the background.

Jay teaching me how to play chess...

These guys were everywhere! They were really cool. And huge!

Since this trip was sponsored by one of our vendors, we had a few group activities, like dinner. They set up a fancy buffet dinner on the beach for us which was really cool.

So nice...

After dinner that night, we went to the hotel's version of Zumanity which is a Cirque show with a little erotica thrown in. It was pretty cool but I will be honest, I had so many glasses of champagne at dinner that I had a hard time staying awake through it.

On the way back to the room, I spotted a raccoon!

We had to be up early the next day to head out to the Mayan ruins. Stay tuned for my recap of Chichen Itza! I took tons of pictures of that!

Hola from Cancun, Mexico!

Yesterday, we made our way to Chichen Itza, the Mayan ruins. I took a zillion pictures with my real camera, but this will have to suffice until I get home.

How to ruin your day...

It always seems like the most drama occurs in my world right before I'm about to go out of town. Maybe I bring it on myself by overly worrying about things or by being stressed out. Regardless, this trip was no different than any other.

I'm leaving for Cancun, Mexico in the morning for a work trip to a gorgeous resort that involves no actual work. Awesome, right?

                                                  I love my job.                                     (source)

This morning, I went to the barn and rode before work and then went off to work like I normally do. My eyes started to get irritated in the morning and got steadily worse until after lunch when my vision started to get more and more blurry.

I took out my contacts, thinking my lenses were just dirty or something and my vision was still blurry. I rarely have contact trouble, so I didn't have my glasses with me and therefore, had to put my contacts back in because I'm legally blind without some sort of corrective lenses. After stressing and worrying for awhile, I decided to see if I could get in to see the eye doctor in case it was something serious before I left for Mexico.

By the time I got to the eye clinic, my vision was so bad that I could barely see. I had called my mom and asked her to go to my house and get my glasses. I really got scared when I took my contacts out, put on my glasses and I couldn't read a text message on my phone.

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The tech tested my vision and even with my glasses on, I couldn't read the biggest letters on the chart with either eye. As I waited and waited for the doctor to finally come in, I got more and more scared, not just that I might not be able to go to Mexico, but that there was something really serious wrong with me ( ya know, like a BRAIN TUMOR).

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Anyway, it turns out that both of my corneas have tons of micro scratches, and my left eye is way worse than my right. I have to put drops in every hour, but they are already starting to feel better and the vision in my right eye is almost back to normal. My left eye is much improved, but still a little blurry.

I have no idea how this happened. My eyes were fine when I left the house this morning. Anyway, here's an awesome picture of me wearing my glasses with the special shades they give you when you get your eyes dilated. Cute, huh?

Don't be jealous of my style...

So yeah, bummer. I can still go to Mexico (although this eye doctor was such an alarmist trying to freak me out about it getting worse and me having to go to a doctor in Mexico...) but I can't wear my contacts or make-up and I can't go swimming.

I do get to go to Chichen Itza, one of the most famous of the Mayan ruins. I can't wait. There will be lots of pictures when I get home. But right now, I need to rest my eyes, they are starting to burn again.

Also, it appears my spell check is not working... sorry if there are errors, it is what it is tonight.

Monday Amusement

Since this is mainly a running blog, most people that read this will be pretty familiar with the Garmin sports watch and heart rate monitor or some other variation. I use the Garmin 405 and I've become so dependent on it, that I have mild anxiety just thinking about running without it.

A friend of mine that is new to running just got one for her birthday from her husband. The very first thing she did was try out the heart rate monitor during sex to see how hard she's working out. True story.

Kindest Words

I'm not feeling great today, so I thought I would spend my day laying on my couch and stalking reading blogs and facebook.

I did start my day with a 6 mile run at 5:30, so I haven't been a lazy bum all day. The group runs are pretty far away from where I live, so I had to leave my house at 4:45 to get there in time. And because my brain wasn't working that early in the morning, I accidentally ended up taking the long route. Doh!

We ran along the canal and I didn't take any pictures because there really wasn't anything different from the last time we ran there. Since I didn't feel well, my run was tough. I just wasn't feeling it and I've had a headache ever since, but it seems to be easing up.

The only cure was this:

I love my Tinkerbell Half Marathon mug!

I tried making over hard eggs for the first time for lunch:

There's a restaurant that we go to all of the time and every weekend, I order my eggs over hard and they are always runny. And not just a little bit, but like sunny side up eggs runny. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's happened at least 10 times there. You're probably wondering why we keep going there and answer is: because we are dumb. And the food is good when it's correct. And it's close to the barn. Last time we were there, my eggs were done correctly for the first time, but Kristy's and Nicole's pancakes were raw in the middle which prompted a very loud "I hate this place!" from Katie. I can't take them anywhere.

 Anyway, my version of over hard eggs turned out perfectly on the first try. I'm wondering why the cooks at the restaurant can never get it right. It's not hard. I would have taken picture of the finished product, my hunger got the best of me and I snarfed them down before I remembered. Oops.

I also practiced self portraits because all of the other bloggers seem to be able to get decent shots of themselves and mine always look horrid. Turns out it's waaaaaay easier taking them with a real camera than using my cell phone.

Hello, there! I'm working on my narcissist skills!

Now for the Kindest Words part of this post:

A friend of mine that lives on the other side of the country in Florida and I were chatting via text earlier about my struggles with marathon training and also getting my horse ridden in the Phoenix heat. I told her that I wasn't a quitter, though, and I would figure it out. She said these kind words to me:

"You are inspirational just being you. That's what I enjoy most about you. You are you...professed 'flaws' and all. You don't try to be perfect...you don't expect others to be. You are accepting and encouraging...you are a blessing."

I think this is the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a very long time, and of course, I almost cried. I'm going to have to figure out a way to make this into a graphic I can save.

Dude! I cooked something!

I'm not what you would call 'domestic'. Not even a little bit. I once had a friend tell me that I really needed to be a good cook if I wanted to find a husband. (I'm not even kidding that she said that and she's a prosecutor, for crying out loud!)

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Anyway, it's not that I can't cook, it's that I choose not to. Besides, I think the fact that I would rather see movies where things blow up than girl movies makes me an ideal girlfriend and not my housewifely abilities, but whatever.

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Anyway, I made a gluten free pizza casserole.  It's also fairly low carb. Now, I'm not a celiac but gluten sensitive, so I can't guarantee that there's no gluten at all in the ingredients I chose, but there's very little if you are sensitive and if you are celiac, well, there's definitely certified gluten free options for all of the ingredients I used.

Okay, this is super easy and super delicious.

First, I browned a package of extra lean turkey meat with some oregano and garlic. I'm sure fresh garlic would be better, but all I had was dried.

Try not to notice how dirty my stove got. I'm not an expert!

You can also use ground beef, but I'm bringing this for lunch tomorrow for me and my work BFF, Tiana, and she likes turkey better. Plus, it's a lot less calories. (Although, I make up for that with my other ingredients!)

Only gourmet ingredients for mah
masterpiece, thank you very much!

Once the turkey is browned I added most of this jar to the frying pan and let it simmer on really low heat for a few minutes while I cut up the vegetables.

I ate an embarrassing amount of this while it was cooking.

And by 'vegetables', I mean two: an onion and a green pepper. Yes, that is a tiny cutting board. It used to be much bigger until I broke it.

I also don't own proper chopping knives...

I considered just dumping the veggies into the casserole without sauteing them first, but I thought maybe that would make the casserole watery, so I popped them on the stove with a little garlic.

Next I put the turkey and veggies in a small baking dish.

The veggies taste much better browned.

Then I added a layer of pepperoni.

And then a layer of mozzarella cheese.

And then another layer of pepperoni.

I said low carb, not low cal...

Top it with a sprinkle of oregano and bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes and voila! A masterpiece is created.

Yum!

Okay, so this recipe doesn't yield a lot of actual food, but the ingredients are very filling. You can really use anything that you like on your pizza. The pepperoni adds a lot of flavor and while it looks really bad for you, 10 slices of that pepperoni is 130 calories and I used a total of 16 slices for the entire thing.

So that's my once in a blue moon contribution to the cooking world. Maybe I will try something else. But don't hold your breath. Oh, I almost forgot! I also ran on treadmill for almost an hour tonight. Woot!

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