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Posts tagged vacation
Home again, safe and sound
Jul 22nd
You know, these road trip with the kids things always sound so good when you’re planning them out. But by the end you just want to kill one or two and suffer the incarceration.
Friday Night: Slow people, having all week to prepare, often wait until the last frakking moment to get their shit together. The plan was to be packed and ready to get dinner at the restaurant where Ginnie works and leave from there when she got off at 7. Gets us into Flagstaff before my bedtime, right? No such luck. Casey and bunch didn’t even get over here until after 6 and we still had to shop for water and snackage. Crap. So we got to Ginnie’s work at 6:50 and caused them all to work late so we could eat (crappy food, I swear that place has the crappiest food evah, but decent clam chowder) and we finally left there at 7:40. 
No traffic, driving my car and Ginnie driving Buck’s truck. We left him with Casey’s crappy car and some smarmy comment about me owing him for it. Fat chance buster. Anyway, all the way up and no problems. Found the Rodeway by driving right past it. Room was okay.
Saturday: Got up really later and by the time everyone was fed and ready and raring to go, the sky opened up and dumped. We hung there waiting for Rene’s family to join us and then we all went to the park for the Highland Celtic Festival. Where it rained, again. The festival was little but nice. Lots of what-clan-are-you-from booths (save the snark el_mcgruffle I know what you’re thinking and I agree) other craft booths. I found a great (seriously GREAT!) dress for only $79, where you’d pay twice that or more at the Ren Faire and I dunno how much more than that at D*C. But, none of the adults (who packed the diaper bag) brought any blanket or extra clothing for the tyke and she was freezing and I’d had enough (not being a Highlander, I wasn’t feeling it) so Ginnie, Corey, Kira and I went back to the room and attempted to take a nap. 
Saturnight: After turning Kira onto the joy of grapes, Casey handed me a “special” brownie, which was nasty, and then we used a different method of delivery. So Casey, Rene and I went out to old town Flagstaff and found Thomas (geistbear) at his recommended pool hall. That was nice! We walked around some more and ended up at the bar across from the motel for the remainder of the evening. Which wasn’t actually that long, as I’m such a lightweight.
This morning. Slow people. Gin, Cory and I ran out for breakfast while the others just lazed about. We checked out a little before noon and with no other ideas we just drove home. Some of us more comfortable than others. 
I like Flagstaff but I’m happy to be home. They all want to move up there! Ginnie wants to check out NAU to see if there’s anything veterinarian-tracked for her to attend there. I couldn’t handle the friggin’ traffic!
Last and final for the weekend.
Jul 20th
Posted a picture of Casey and one of Ginnie on Flickr.
Packed for our trip to Flagstaff. Waiting for Casey and crew to get here and then we’ll pick up Corey, shop for stuff for the cooler, and pick up Ginnie when she gets off work at 7:00. Whew. Then we’ll finally be on the road.
And I’m fairly sure I won’t have to drive. Cool!
No subject imagination today.
Jul 16th
Yesterday we spent the day in our separate rooms avoiding each other. Today I’m back to craigslist looking for something for Ginnie and me in the area. Starting all over. I’m not waiting for him to leave; fuck the lease. Its his buddy who bought this house and HE signed another two-year lease so fuck them both.
Good news, though. Casey suggested we all go on a road trip to Flagstaff this weekend. And not just because my car has A/C, but because we have fun road trips. Gin wants to take Corey. So the um, seven of us are trooping up on Friday night and coming back on Sunday. Of course that depends entirely upon finding a motel room or two and the hope that their car makes the trip okay. We’ll see. We’re fly by the seat of our pants road trip people. Plan ahead? Where’s the fun in that?
But I’ll be missing the recording of Wingin It and Kris’ last show before she ships off to south Africa. I really like the new format. We’re still having fun, but its not the free-for-all it was before. There are actual TOPICS!!!!11!!! I still miss Evo and Sheila, but I think we’re adapting quite well.
Thought for the day: Subtext is an anagram of Buttsex.
Mini-Vacation
Jul 2nd
Drove to Biosphere 2. Nice place, neatly avoided the cows on the road leading up to, parked first slot, tromped in perfect timing for the first tour of the day. THE TOUR GUY WAS AN ASS. There, I said it. One of the “original people” on the project according to him and he gives tours “to tell the truth” and damn what anyone else wants. I swear he started the tour saying that. Speedy tour with him mumbling into the megaphone in a fairly incoherent middle eastern accent. So we just looked around. The place is functioning but not at the level it was at the beginning. Just a huge tourist attraction at the moment. Came out a back door and Casey asked a question. The man actually belittled the question! Casey hadn’t realized we’d went underground and that the door we came out of wasn’t actually supposed to be there. He asked how there could be an airlock . . .
Anyway, if you ever go to Biosphere 2 – which is actually cool to see – hope you don’t get the asshole tour guide whose name we can’t remember him ever telling us.
From there we went to Colossal Caves. Lunched at their snack bar, which was actually quite good – except for Venus’ of course. Then we went on the tour (funny little dude named John) and though all that up and down stairs stuff wore me out, it was very cool. I’ll have pictures as soon as I locate my camera.
Crappy motel room for the night because we’d had just about enough whining and fighting. The hot tub wasn’t hot and didn’t bubble and the pool had 479 little hispanic children screaming and playing in it. The room didn’t have hot water either, so we were given a new room. Couldn’t find a decent place for dinner so we ended up paying too much at a crappy restaurant and went back to our crappy motel room and died.
This morning we munched on the surprisingly good (except for Venus’ of course) and free breakfast then headed to the Pima Air and Space Museum. Way cool, except for the heat. Started wandering around before we ALL decided the tram tour was worth the extra $20. Um, tons of planes, more than my actual attention span could cover, but we have some pics. Drove from there to see what we could of the Airplane Graveyard – wasn’t open on Sundays. Then off to home.
All-in-all it was fun. The girl would wait until she was hurting to bother to tell me (the driver) that she needed a bathroom. So I finally said “Like, honey? We’re in the desert and there ain’t a potty on every corner. You gotta give me some lead-time.” Whiner. I try really hard not to suck the joy out of her first pregnancy but it isn’t the world’s first pregnancy. We’ve all been there before. And her food was never right, and everything made her queasy, and pregnant women can’t do this or that.
I also snapped in the caves when she was bitching about the climbing and shit and pointed out two other people carrying LIVE children and at least her’s was safely ensconced. Wait til you have to carry the little angel everywhere for the next year.
Anyway, the walking didn’t kill me, though I used my inhaler more than I should have. Its not as hot in Tucson as it is here, and there always seemed to be a nice breeze. Ginnie drove a bit, but chickened out when we got in traffic.
Good to be home.
Regular update – nothing special
Jun 29th
Ginnie failed her second attempt at the written portion of her driver’s test. I dunno if she just thinks it will be easy so she’s not studying for real, or as she says, she’s just lousy at tests. Our “written” parts are now computerized and not timed, so I tell her to take her time, we go over questions before she goes and she STILL missed easy ones. But really, if you can’t handle the stress of the stupid test, how can you expect to handle the stress of a semi crowding your lane at 70 mph, or some schmuck running the red light when your’s is green, etc.
I’m planning a jaunt to Tucson this weekend. Originally, it was supposed to be me, Ginnie and Leticia, but I vetoed that when Casey said he wanted to go. I haven’t taken Casey (and Sky) on a road trip since he was little, so I got mean and had Ginnie un-invite Leticia. So we’re going to Biosphere 2, some cavern, Pima Air and Space Museum (and maybe the airplane graveyard, I dunno) and some water park. Its all to give Ginnie some highway drive time, but if she doesn’t pass her test today – on her third try – she ain’t driving.
Lets see, what else?
Gee, I can’t think of anything. How lame is that?
Ah, we're back
Jan 16th
From Laughlin, the long way.
Yesterday, we left 40 minutes late, got stuck behind some of the slowest fuckers out there. I hate people who sit in the fast lane. No traffic jams, just every Sunday driver between here and the CA/NV/AZ border. Arrived almost 3 hours after expected.
High points:
Counted more than 80 old VW Vans 
Found Bill’s son pretty quickly so they were successfully dumped. Mike and his wife Ruth both work at the Riverside Hotel and Casino in Laughlin.
Ginnie and I went on and passed through some gorgeous mountains, rain storms all around us and yet none ON us. It was beautiful. Looked more like paintings in the distance than real storms. Ended up at the Route 66 Motel in Seligman for the night. Quaint. The Montie Montana room. Which was nicely done up considering the motel must have been 800 years old (slight exaggeration). Wasn’t bad at all except when the heater died at 2am and we ’bout froze to death. Light dusting of snow outside.
Roadkill Cafe for dinner. Man, it was super. I really must try these hole-in-the-wall dives more often, because the ones I’ve bothered to try have been great.
Left the motel at 5am because of the cold. Nobody answered the phone or the door at the office so we wandered down to Chino Valley in time for the McDonald’s to open for breakfast. Then down a lonely dirt road (for 3 hours of nobody NOWHERE) so Ginnie could drive. Ended up in Jerome, a cute little town built on the side of a mountain. I think it used to be a mining town but it’s been taken over by colorful artistic folk.
Then homeward. Here by 1:30 – Updating this and then I’m going to crash for a few hours.
