Zion National Park : Guide to Hiking Angels Landing in Winter
I must have been crazy to want to hike Angels Landing in winter. I've been to Zion National Park multiple times during the summer, but never during the winter. This was going to be my first time. I seriously couldn't wait and was planning like a madwoman for months. I've never hiked Angels Landing, let alone in the winter, so I really didn't know what to expect. I've seen so many pictures and heard so
Mandalay Bay : Chase Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection
Today we're going to explore another Chase Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection property: Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. So, let's begin by saying that this trip wasn't even supposed to happen. One day I was looking at my Southwest Airlines account and noticed that there was $111 of unused Southwest credit. I haven't been flying as I used to and I must have forgotten all about it. The credit was due to expire in
Free Wine Tasting (Part 5) : Willamette Valley, Oregon
Welcome back to Part 5 of my free wine tasting series! We are going to continue on with the famous Willamette Valley since it was too long to fit all in one blog post last time. If you are interested, you can find the first Willamette Valley post here. The day that we visited these wineries, it was, unfortunately, raining all day. It seems that I can't get away from bad weather. First, it was
Photography Series : Palouse Falls
In the second installment of my photography series (the first installment can be found here), we're going to visit Palouse Falls in Washington. When I first heard about Palouse Falls, I thought it would be an excellent place to shoot some landscape photography. Luckily, we were already in the city of Walla Walla, Washington on a wine tasting trip so we decided we would make an afternoon trip of it. Originally, we had planned on
The Nines Hotel : Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts
On our last Oregon trip, we decided to stay at The Nines Hotel in Portland using our Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts benefit. I know of The Nines Hotel because of a previous trip I took years ago when it was still part of SPG. Today, the Nines Hotel is under the Marriott brand and is part of the Luxury Collection Hotel sub-brand. I haven't been to this hotel in probably five years so I
Free Wine Tasting (Part 4) : Willamette Valley, Oregon
In Part 4 of our Alaska Airlines Free Wine Tasting series, we are now going to visit the famous Willamette Valley, Oregon! Yes, the prestigious land of pinot noirs. A lot of people don’t know about this region, but it’s just as reputable as Napa or Sonoma. If you didn’t know, it’s actually pronounced “Will-AM-it” as in “Will-AM-it, dammit!” In the beginning, I was pronouncing it the wrong way and was literally practicing for weeks
The Ultimate Guide to the Gucci Outlet
As we are getting closer and closer to the gift-giving season, I thought I'd share with you an in-depth guide to the Gucci Outlet! There are multiple Gucci outlets around the world, but I'll be concentrating on the one located at the Desert Premium Outlets in Cabazon, California. You might be familiar with this location already as I blogged about the Christian Louboutin outlet store that's there too. Let's first start off with the fact that
Park MGM : Chase Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection
I know I've been posting a lot about Oregon lately so today I'm going to change it up and talk about our recent visit to the Park MGM Las Vegas using the Chase Luxury Hotel and Resort Collection (LHRC). You might have seen one of my earlier blog posts where we stayed at the Encore Hotel Las Vegas using Amex's Fine Hotels and Resort Program. Well, the Chase LHRC is almost exactly like that. We
Free Wine Tasting (Part 3) : Hood River, Oregon
In Part 3 of our Alaska Airlines Free Wine Tasting series, we are going to visit Hood River, Oregon! As a quick reminder, the way to get the free wine tasting is that you must have flown on Alaska Airlines from one of the 30 participating airports and will visit one of the listed Oregon or Washington wineries within a certain amount of days. You must be a Mileage Plan member and be able to
Best Waterfall Hikes in Umpqua National Forest
Umpqua National Forest is filled with an abundance of waterfall hikes and it was hard deciding on which ones we wanted to do. The day we landed in Portland, we decided that we were going to drive down and spend the night in a city closer to Umpqua National Forest. We were flipping back and forth between staying in Eugene (+2 hours away from Umpqua) or staying in Roseburg (+1 hour away). We originally decided