No Way, San Jose!

San Jose, the capital of Silicon Valley. There's gotta be lots of fun adventures to be had here!

The view from Dad's hotel in downtown San Jose. Look! It's Christmas time in California. Dad said they don't celebrate it here but once again he's just wrong.

I see London, I see France, I see the Nutcracker's butt crack. Seriously, there are children present. Modest is hottest, Mr. Nutcracker.

We spent all evening at the Tech Museum. Here I spelled out my name using binary code! 01000111=G

And here you write on a screen with your finger....

And then it's doctored up to look all fabulous and thrown up on the screen for everyone to see!

Woooooah....it's like it can read my mind!

Am I looking out a window at downtown San Antonio? NOPE! I'm on the 270 degree Google Earth exhibit. Now let's fly to NYC!

It t'was so pretty!

O..M...Lil G...There are few things in this world that are more adorable than me. Little puppy dogs dressed up in Christmas costumes and girl scouts singing in a park are, unfortunately, at the top of the adorable list. I hate being out-cuteified.

These were $5 a bottle and someone seriously just downed like twenty bucks worth. I'm so confused as to why someone would throw away an Andrew Jackson when there's free bottle water up the the concierge lounge....

Cleveland Rocks...I guess

Whew! I'm almost all caught up on my blog! Next stop, Cleveland!

Just east of Cleveland was the small village of Kirtland. Boy, were the trees pretty!

Dad left me to be the navigator, but I ended up getting the high score on Bejewelled Blitz instead of keeping up the GPS on his phone. He was a little miffed, but look at all those tasty trees!

We finally made it to Kirtland! Dad didn't let me munch any on the foliage so I'm famished. Let's stop in this little general store and see if they have anything worth my time.

So it turns out the general store was more of a museum then an actual store. No worries, Texas Roadhouse to the rescue! Dad had to explain to the waitress for about 5 minutes of the importance of pickles and onions in connection with pulled pork BBQ. It's not entirely as good as Texas, but with some p&o it's closer...

Just a short stroll from Dad's hotel is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I already had the mohawk so I was pretty much set.

Awww...I love my dad! He doesn't let me snuggle with him 'cause he says that's just weird so I'll get some Harvey time from this sign.

Flip, Flip, Flip-adelphia!

On the road, again. This time...Philadelphia!

DFW Airport...yet again. We were just sitting there, minding our own business, when this Army guy comes up with his dog. Dad, ever biased toward cute dogs, was excited. I, however, am still fighting the ghosts of my past. And with Chet out there doing who-knows-what in my name, I was naturally a little nervous. Dad told me to come out of his luggage and take a look. As soon as I got out, Scruffy here got all kinds of excited. Whether he thought I was my evil-twin Chet in need of justice or a chew toy, it didn't matter...I started to squirm and whimper until Dad tucked me safely away.

The actual Liberty Bell! If you line up the crack with the third pane of glass from the left during the Winter Solstice, I'm told a shadow will be cast that opens a door which leads Ben Franklin's secret stash of BBQ turkey legs.



Hey! What's up with all the white guys? Where's the giraffe delegation??

Getting in line to go inside Independence Hall. Indeed.

The courtroom side of Independence Hall. Our tour guide is holding a royal seal that hung above the judge's stand prior to July, 1776. The story is that when the people heard the Declaration of Independence read in the courtyard, they ran inside and with Patriotic zeal tore down all symbols of Great Britain, dragged them through the streets, and then set them ablaze. Proving the notion that Philadelphia fans haven't changed at all in the last two centuries.

The chair at the front of the room was the actual one George Washington sat in as President of the Constitutional Convention! Dad almost threw me up there so I could touch it, but our tour guide had a pony-tail and we all know that he's leery of men with ponytails.

The location of one of Daddy's favorite moments of musical motion pictures. Anyone who has seen the musical 1776 should recognize this and instantly giggle as the image comes to mind of Franklin, Livingston, and Sherman do a high-kick routine down these steps singing 'Combustibility! Combustibility! Com-busta-bil-it' and then John Adams screams 'QUIET!!' Classic.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about...

Oh yeah, this was also the building where some of the leading minds of the 18th Century put together this crazy idea of freedom, limited government, and individual responsibility. But while I'm still waiting for the Giraffe Civil Rights Amendment I drafted during my tenure as President of We May Be Stuffed But We Still Feel - Giraffe Chapter...I have hope in America.

An Adventure Right at Home! H-E-B!!!

An H-E-B just opened about 30 miles from Dad's house in Burleson, TX! If battling down I-35W through Fort Worth wasn't more difficult than breaching the Black Gate of Mordor, we'd always be doing our shopping here!

It's so beautiful!

Beautiful, delicious, bananas. Melvin the Monkey could put put H-E-B out of business at 29 cents a pound!

Bucket O' Brisket with a Texas flag on top? Who wouldn't!?!

Tortellini, sauce, steamed veggies, bread, and cookies for just over $5 bucks? These gatos are loco!!

After seeing a dozen eggs for 49 cents we rolled down to get a gallon of leche. No stinkn way...78 cents a gallon?!?! I'm getting a little light-headed....

Pssshhhhh....only the coolest grocery stores have a freakn mascot. I wanted a personal picture with H-E-Buddy, but Dad is a bit leery of soft fluffy things that could possibly beat him up, so we stood clear.

Oh how I miss you already, H-E-B. Dad has picked out a nice piece of land in North Ft Worth if you ever want to expand happiness and joy to that part of Texas!

Miami and the Keys!

Dad was upgraded to a corner room on the 27th floor! It's a bit gloomy here in Miami, so let's head down to the Florida Keys!

Holy bananas, Key West was forever away. Dad thought it was like an hour from Miami...turns out it's out in the middle of the dad-gum ocean.


Along our 7 hr round trip, we come across a key that is supposedly is the natural habitat of an endangered deer species. I have sooooooo many questions:


1) How did deer make their natural habitat on an island?
2) If the hippies created a sanctuary, then why did they pick a place that has a highway going right down the middle?
3) These are 'key' deer...what makes them so critical and what role do they play?
3a) Are they celebrities?
3b)Do they put on shows or have their own blog?
3c) What paperwork do I need to fill out to get classified as a key giraffe?
3d) Is that a state or federal issue or do I need to bump it all the way up to the UN?
4) Who in their right mind is giving speed to the all-important and special deer?
4a) Why doesn't it kill the lame-o deer
4b) Is there some kind of well-known hierarchy to drug dealers, yet unknown to the scientific world, where only those deer who 'make it' are sold speed?4c) Is the reason for the fence to protect the public from whacked-out, psychopathic deer with a superiority complex?



We survived the Jurassic Park-like horror of the Key Deer and made it to Key West!

Whoa, we had no idea that one of America's most famous writers lived here in Key West. I was kinda impressed but Dad goes into a trance, reliving the nightmare of freshman year English when he was forced to read The Old Man and the Sea. 128 pages about an old Cuban fisherman who catches a huge fish, can't pull it in his little dingy, gets a little fish-crush on it, names it Reginald, kills Reginald, drags Reginald back to his village, oh no..shark!, oh no..shark!, oh no...shark!, pulls back into port with nothing but bones, the old man takes a nap.

Dad insisted he already wasted $6 bucks and 3 weeks of his life on Mr. Hemingway, there's no way Ernie is going to get another dime...so we moved on.

Ahhh...nothing like a little bit of sun to bring out my beautiful brown spots.

Dad had to go potty so he went back to the hotel for a few minutes. I was like:

Just go in the ocean?

What am I, some kind of animal?

Hurtful...

When he came back, he discovered me in this masterpiece. He seemed genuinely impressed that a stuffed little giraffe could construct such a wonder. Then I told him I just moved in after some boys built it and then scampered off. Then he said I ain't nothin' more than a squatter.

Hurtful...

Ahhhh.....would that we could ride a 777 everywhere we went. We had our own little TV and could watch any number of movies. Feeling bad for the insults he spat at me in a moment of desperation (guess he really had to use the bathroom), he let me watch Despicable Me. I know from the several giggles coming behind me he was enjoying it, too.

Where's our next adventure??

Lil G is a Yankee Doodle Dandy!

And yet another 1 week, 2 cities whirlwind. This time Minneapolis and Nashua. Time to get all American up in this joint!

First stop...the Mall of America!

Holy heifer! There are all kinds of stuff in here...that no one is doing. Maybe it's because it's like 4:40 on a Tuesday afternoon or maybe it's because, like, American malls stopped, like, being a hang out spots in, like, 1996. This is sooo 15 years ago.

For the most part, the Mall of America was a big disappointment. Just a lot of stores we see everywhere else. In fact, several stores have multiple locations within the mall...sooo this wasn't much of an adventure. Wwait.....what's this? A Microsoft Store is opening directly across from the Apple Store on Nov 6? Oh SNAP! I almost want to wait until then to see the inevitable throw-down that's going to happen.

Seriously, I'm getting a total West Side Story vibe. I can see it all now...all manner of dancing and snapping and saying things like 'Cool!' and 'Neat!' and then flashing out flip phones. Then Starlight--a moody and misunderstood free spirit who is uniquely unique but is a slave to trends--meets Wallace--confident in his element, safe within his personal boundaries, and hesitant to tread outside what is deemed comfortable--as their eyes lock mid-kick ball change. Wallace is drawn in by Starlight's many and varied scrunchies and hair ties while Starlight appreciates the crisp lines of his freshly pressed polo shirt. They come from different worlds, and the animosity engulfing this small corner of the Mall of America seems to only fuel the forbidden flame of their love.

We move from the Great White North to the Boston suburb of New Hampshire.

Our time in New England was way too short. We didn't get time to really do or see anything outside of Dad's meeting. Ugh...I'm so ready for an adventure!

Ok, never mind....I'm all tuckered out. Where are we off to next, Dad?