& that's the way life goes

Day Four of My Michigan Bloggers is Mandy from Gingermandy. This lady has some mad fucking talent.  Seriously, she’s all snarky, witty and heartfelt.  I asked her bottle that talent up and sell it so I can drink it, but you know that’s kind of creepy.  And without Mandy I never would have experienced aerial yoga, that would have been a tragedy.   Anyways be sure to check out Mandy’s articles on examiner too, she has some hilarious dating stories and advice.  And speaking of jealous…her career move (freelance writer, yo!) totally makes me turn green!

Enjoy!

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Hey kids! GingerMandy here. Since Ria decided to bail on all of us and head to sunny San Diego amidst our big winter storm, I’m going to take over her fort for a day (Hey Ria – I HOPE IT SNOWS.)

Just kidding, I’d never do that. I hope it’s 80 and sunny. (No I don’t. This is the jealousy talking. Sorry. Don’t mind this.)

Anyjealous, I always feel weird going on someone elses blog and talking about myself, but Ria asked me and the other awesome Michigan girls to do it, and I’m never going to pass up talking about myself to a group of new people, so I’ll tell you about the most interesting and random vacation I’ve ever been on.

I’ve been to a lot of big cities including Vegas, DC, Chicago, LA, NYC, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, the list goes on… I love big city life, I love the thought of walking everywhere I go, the thought of walking to a Starbucks down the street from your high rise loft when you’re bored, and the thought of possibly being able to stalk famous people. What?

That’s why this particular vacation was not only incredibly out of my element, but what I’d presume to be an absolute nightmare, equivalent to leaping off the empire state building and catching my eyelid on a nail and then being set on fire.

When I was 16, my Dad brought my family out west. He’d been out there quite frequently for work and discovered a lot of things he knew we’d all love doing. We were in LA for 3 days, where we did all the touristy LA stuff (Hollywood, all the beaches along highway 1, you get the idea) and then drove to Vegas for 4 days. On the way to Vegas we drove through Arizona. He was always talking about this “small town” in Arizona he’d discovered, and insisted we had to stop there. Whatever, Dad.

We began driving there, and apparently this “little town” was in “the middle of the mountains.” Like literally. The. Middle. Of. The. Mountains. He drove the windy mountain offroads for about 20 minutes, scaring the living piss out of us around every curve until finally we drove up onto this little patch of…. driveway or something. I figured we were stopping to pee maybe, there were a few small buildings and some random burro’s walking around the 1/2 mile dirt road. I had no idea why my Dad chose to stop here. The town we were supposed to be visiting couldn’t be THAT far.

“Well kids, we’re here!” He said with a big smile on his face.

“………………………………………………………..”

“Seriously Dad?”

“Yep, welcome to Oatman, Arizona.”

This little road with the burro’s walking around and the handful of buildings and the handful of people? Yea. This is the town he’d been raving about.

Upon arrival in Oatman, your mother will make you stand in front of a burro for a picture the second you get there. Once you take the picture, she will look at her camera in horror when she discovers she chose the “horny” burro. Then you’ll stand in front of another burro for another picture, but first she’ll check to make sure his frank and beans aren’t as excited as the first and your little sister will say “Mom why are you looking at the donkey’s weiner?” And we’ll all giggle and Dad will say “WELL let’s go get ice cream!”

Once you get ice cream, the burro’s will flock to you and show you their teeth. Sadly, they have more teeth than anyone in town. You’ll offer them a lick to your ice cream, but before the burro has a chance to take a lick, a wrangly, toothless lone ranger will come out of the woodwork and tell you to get your ice cream away from the damn burro’s, otherwise they be shittin’ all over the porch. True story.

It turns out the little town wasn’t all that awful. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, definitely not the glitz and glamour of Vegas and DEFINITELY not a town that is familiar with a dentist, but we had fun shopping for raccoon hats and moccasins, buying beef jerky by the pound, chasing burro’s up the mountain and hunting for a full set of teeth. There was also some really interesting history about how the town came to be. The population is something around 13, or maybe 130, no… 130 sounds too industrious. Anyway, the people are happy and loyal to their town and apparently learned the hard way about feeding the burro’s ice cream.

For a fun vacation, you don’t have to go somewhere big and fancy. I mean, I’d still prefer NYC to Oatman any day, but I’m really glad we went. It gave a whole new meaning to the term “hung like a horse.”