# 5 - CHECK

The fifth thing on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days was to buy a jeep. Justin owned a jeep when he turned 16 (he actually had it when he was 14) and had it all the way through his senior year in high school before he replaced it with a truck. When Justin and I dated in high school, he owned his 1997 Jeep Wrangler and he loved it VERY MUCH. It was red with a black soft top with huge tires and a huge lift. Some of me and Justin's favorite memories of us in high school revolved around that jeep. Every time I saw a jeep in college or after college when I lived in Nashville, I automatically thought of Justin. It was just how I identified him for so long. He use to come pick me up at my house in Trace Crossings during the summer just to go riding around Hoover or go through the Wendy's drive thru (which is where he spent most of his time in high school).

Anyway, Justin has been dying to get another jeep for so long and we have been talking about it for a while. When we went to Hawaii and rented a red four door Rubicon, that was Justin's sign from above. Since we got back from Hawaii, he has been relentlessly researching all red four door jeep Rubicon's within 1,000 miles from Birmingham. He found five of them, but only two of them were stick shifts (for some reason he HAD to have a stick shift). The closest one was about an hour outside of Orlando. So, Justin and I hopped on a plane to fly to Orlando this past weekend. And we came home with this....








We love the new car so much!!! We drove the long 9 hour drive from Orlando back to Birmingham Saturday afternoon. There's nothing like riding with the top down on a cloudless day blaring some Kings of Leon (along with some various country music too). We decided to go to one of the parks while we were in Orlando. We were originally going to go to Magic Kingdom, but changed our minds at the last minute to go to Universal's Island of Adventure. We wanted to ride some roller coasters and they had some amazing ones there (according to the website) so we chose that one.

Such a good choice! We rode tons of roller coasters but our absolute FAVORITE was one called "Dueling Dragons". This ride had two coasters that went down two different tracks. One was a red dragon and referred to as "fire" and one was a blue dragon and was referred to as "ice". Although these coasters had two different tracks, their paths crossed twice in a scary moment where you think "oh my God, are we about to die". The first time was when the ice coaster does a corkscrew not even five feet beneath the fire coaster. All you see is your feet almost touch those of the people on the opposite coaster. The second, and most famous, meeting between the two is when they both go on loops right next to each other, again, almost touching feet.

I didn't make this video, it was just one I found on youtube. To see the coasters almost touch, look at :46 - 1:00. If you want to see it in slow motion (cause it looks really cool that way) go to 1:14. Justin and I rode each of these coasters twice (4 times total). We went on an awesome day. I'm guessing that since school started back, no one really comes to the parks, but whatever the reason, the park was incredibly uncrowded! We never waited for any ride more than 5 minutes. That's why we were able to leave the park at 1pm (since we had already done everything at that point) and drive all the way back to Birmingham. We had originally planned to stay a night in Tallahassee and then drive the rest of the way on Sunday. We had a blast and we love our jeep :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention something funny about flying to Orlando. Justin and I flew seperately. I flew on Southwest and he flew on Delta. I'm about 3 flights away from getting my free round trip flight from Southwest and I have to have those credits before April 2010, which for me, means I have to have them before Christmas since after that is my busy season and I won't be flying anywhere! I'm trying to get this free roundtrip flight so that I can use it to fly to Seattle to see my friend Lauren. She's lived there for 3 years now and I still haven't been able to make it out there ONCE! So that is what I'm using my free credit for when I get it. Anyway, on to the funny part...

So Justin flew Delta and I kind of felt bad for him because he had to fly through Atlanta and there were some major storms in Atlanta and all flights going into and out of the city were delayed. I however, flew directly from Birmingham to Orlando and my flight was even early getting into Orlando. I felt so bad for him....until I got a text when he landed in Orlando saying that he was on a plane that had the SAME EXACT first class seats that we had on our way to Hawaii. For those of you who don't know, Justin travels A LOT for work and he is platinum on Delta, which means he sits first class pretty much every flight he takes. My husband whines like a baby if he doesn't get first class. Naturally, he gets ZERO sympathy from me :) To see some pretty awesome pictures of those seats click here. I was SOOOO jealous!