It feels like I have written anything in a century, so this might be a little bit word vomitty...deal with it :)
So, first of all, I returned form 29 Palms last night around 10:30. It was my first road trip all by myself, I drove about 1200 mile round trip all by my lonesome. Although I had mega anxiety about it, once I was on the road, I really enjoyed the drive alone. I could listen to whatever I wanted, drive the as fast as I felt comfortable with and I didn't have any pressure do drive some certain way. It was kind of liberating and I felt very adult.
The trip itself was quite wonderful. J and I had a great time together and being truly alone for several days for the first time ever was fantastic. We didn't really do much except for swim and enjoy each other's company. I am so glad that I got to go...I didn't take any pictures, but I'm not much of a let's-snap-a-picture-of-this-moment type of person so...oh well.
In other news, I'm back at work today. Part of me is like "Woo, I needed a day of playing on the computer after driving all day yesterday" the rest of me is like "ugh, I have to go to work..."
Lately, though, things have been pretty interesting around here. Working in a call center can be hard, especially for someone like me who had a hard sitting through class in high school and we had to get up every 90 minutes. It doesn't help that I have almost zero human contatct throughout the day. I speak to a computer and not to a person, so I never really have to have any interactions with anyone.
On the bright side, though, there are a lot of interesting characters here. For example, I may have mentioned this girl before, but she kind of looks a little bit like Emmy Rossum and she must have been told that one too many times, becasue she is clearly obsessed with her. Her wallpaper on her computer is Emmy Rossum, and she looks at pictures of her and reads articles about her all day long...What the heck?! She also pulls her pants up into shorts (we're not allowed to wear shorts in the center) once she's in her seat...goodness it's strange, but to each their own I guess.
Also, they've been sending out emails that say stuff like, "Don't put your feet on the desk." or "Please no clipping your fingernails." or "Don't take things that aren't yours" How old are we people? You should not have to be told these things...
The break room can be pretty funny too. If there is one person at each table, people will stand awkwardly against the counter or wall so they don't have to sit with someone else. And if two people are sitting together and chatting, you think to yourself, "How do they know each other? They must have met in training, or maybe they knew each other before..." It's such a mystery because there really aren't other ways to get to know people...
My job really gives me mixed feelings.
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacation. Show all posts
Vacation
On Sunday during work, I decided that I would fight the hard battle of getting someone to cover my shifts for a couple of days while I went on a family vacation. At first I was annoyed to be on it at all due to the fact that I would end up losing hours at work and not get paid as much. And that is never a good thing...but I'm so very glad that I decided to go. After complaining about how camp spaghetti usually tastes, I earned myself the chore of cooking it for the whole
This trip is to a tiny potato town called Weiser, Idaho. Every year, they hold a national fiddle competition (what's the difference between the violin and the fiddle? There isn't a difference in the actual instrument. Fiddle refers to the style of music played on it.)
We go there and camp in the sticks behind these big buildings that used to be a college or boarding school (there's a big huge history to the area, but I can't remember. The buildings are big and old, that's all that really matters.) All week we play music until all hours of the night and throughout the day making new friends and reuniting with old ones. This year just so happened to be really cold at night, so we folded down the sides of the wall tent and turned on the heater to jam. Unfortunately the heat got the best of everyone and they started sleepin on the job...
But some people managed to stay awake long enough to keep the jam going. It was probably around 12:00 am when I took this picture. Somehow, the later you stay up, the better the jams get. But we could just be getting more immune to how crappy it can be sometimes.The best part of Weiser is playing music with your friends that you don't usually get to see. The second best part? Yard Sales. Seems how this town is pretty small, this is the biggest week of the year for them. There's so many people from out of town that it's the perfecft time for a yard sale. These signs are just the beginning. There were more on the corners of most streets and signs were stapled to half the powerline poles. Needless to say, I had some awesome finds.
This the best used book store ever. I can't even believe how many printings he had from the 1940s and earlier. It's really cool to see.
This is the MINATURE MASTERS contest. They give really excellent musicians tiny instruments and ask them to play them. The kid in the yellow shirt was camp by us. He and his friend drove all the way from Ohio just for this contest. We fed them some pancakes and lent them phones and made friends with them. That's the best part of these things. Music brings people together :)
And that was my family vaction!
Return To 29!
Well, I'm back from the desert again. This time the trip was a little bit different. First of all, I actually got some pictures. I'm going to warn you now, I'm taking this lovely little medication that I do believe is making me gain weight. I've gained ten lbs. in about...a month. And I'm lucky enough to carry it right in my belly, so I look nice and 4 months pregnant. I assure you, I'm not.
So, we jumped in the car around 06:00 and I took the first shift of driving (my first "long distance" drive!) and I drove us all the way to Cedar City. A whopping 3 and 1/2 hours from our house...Then I passed the keys on over to big sis and I let her drive the rest of the 6+ hours to our destination. It wasn't a bad drive, we made sure that we were prepared for it. I made us tuna fish and we brought plenty of good stuff to drink and snack on. Last trip, we just at McDonalds and stuff and felt real sick the whole time.
We pulled reached Las Vegas aroun 1:30 (we made really good time with my sister driving) and don't worry, we got a picture of the big tortoise on the freeway for you! I suck at taking pictures with my phone. So when I was tasked with taking this photo in the moving vehicle, I was very nervous, but never fear, I got the job done.The nice thing about reaching Las Vegas, is it means that you're almost there. Once you hit Primm (The little town with the huge outlet mall and Whiskey Petes off I-15) you jump off the freeway and start into the Mojave Desert. That, my friends, is kinda scary if I'm being completely honest. Luckily though, it's the home stretch!
So we finally arrived and got all cleaned up and ready to go when we received the call that it was time to go pick up the Js (same name remember?). So we started our drive to the base and I got all excited when we finally drove through the gates. Even though I had seen him the weekend before the last it still felt like the first time in a century. Because there isn't much to do in 29 Palms and the pool was closed :( we had to think of other adventures. There was a gate ajar in the back of the parking lot, so we ventured through it and climbed a mountain and spotted rabbits and coyotes. Not a big deal. The thing about the mountains in this god forsaken place, is they don't really look like mountains...I live in Utah in the Salt Lake Valley which means there's gigantic mountains all around me that are green and covered with snow from November to June so hiking up this mountain made me feel like I was on a different planet. But we got some kinda cutish pictures? See? 4+ months pregnant...not cool.
We also ventured into the town of Joshua Tree and went to a Flea Market (we saw a tortoise!) and a thrift store. And you know how I love thrift stores! The cool thing about this one, was it seemed to be in an old bank. So there was a vault in the back with clothes in it. It was kinda awesome...
But that pretty much concludes my trip to see my Marine. We had a wonderful time together and I miss him already. The worst part? I haven't a clue when I'm going to see him again...
29 Stumps
I don't have pictures becasue I suck.
I now understand why they call it 29 Stumps.
After getting off I-15 just after Primm and driving for 2 hours through the desert, we reached 29 Palms. As we began to get closer my sister starts to freak out. She's driving and saying things like, "Katie, you did see pictures of our hotel online, right? I mean this place isn't a crack hotel is it?" Or there was this one before we were even close to our destination: "I bet that we're just going to suddenly just go into a new dimension and we'll finally be in this dumb place."
And once we could actually see the "city" she started saying how she is pretty sure that we were in hell. Literally we just crossed dimensions into hell. She was freaking out and saying, "Is there going to be somewhere to eat? What if there's no food?!"
Of course food was her first concern.
Well, we got checked into our room and then headed to base to pick up my boy. When I saw him, I think I almost fainted. I was so happy. I gave him a big hug and a kiss and I just looked at him for a second completely in love all over again and it was fantastic.
He went to get his stuff and grabbed his friend (The friend was to keep my sister busy while we had time alone ;)) and we headed off base and back to our room.
I wish that I could tell you all about how much fun this trip was, but honestly, there is NOTHING to do in 29 Palms, we swam in the hotel next to ours' pool and hung out in our air conditioned hotel room. We ate some food in the various popular restraunt around the area (Denny's, MickyDs, Mexican restaurant with a name that escapes me, BK), but honestly, I had a great time. When you're apart for so long, you just get used to missing the person you're away from, it's as if you just start to not feel the missing any more because it's a normal feeling. But when I saw him, it all came back at once how much I had missed him.
And lucky me, because my sister actually kinda hit it off withe J's friends (their names are the same actually...it got really confusing!) We're going back!
I get to return to my Marine again next week. And I already got work off and everything! I'm so excited. Even more so this time because I know what to expect and we'll be better prepared for the little amount of time that we get to spend together.
In other news, J told me yesterday that it's looking like their until won't be deploying until after the new year. That makes me very happy. I told him that I like that timeline much better than deploying this year. That means he might be home for Christmas! And we could possibly find time to get married when it's not on pre-depolyment leave : P I do not want to do that. I think it'd be a good idea because it's going to set us up financially for our future becasue until he comes back from deployment I will be living at home and getting his BAH for where I live. But I'll also have my own job and won't have much for living expenses so we can just save all that money and have quite a lot saved when he comes home and it's time for us to think about getting us a place to live and get all settled down, but I don't want to send my brand new husband off to war after being married for a week. Not cool. But, I guess I just need to get used to the reality of our situtation.
On the bright side, if his unit gets disbannded after this deployment, I might NEVER have to live in 29 Stumps!
I now understand why they call it 29 Stumps.
After getting off I-15 just after Primm and driving for 2 hours through the desert, we reached 29 Palms. As we began to get closer my sister starts to freak out. She's driving and saying things like, "Katie, you did see pictures of our hotel online, right? I mean this place isn't a crack hotel is it?" Or there was this one before we were even close to our destination: "I bet that we're just going to suddenly just go into a new dimension and we'll finally be in this dumb place."
And once we could actually see the "city" she started saying how she is pretty sure that we were in hell. Literally we just crossed dimensions into hell. She was freaking out and saying, "Is there going to be somewhere to eat? What if there's no food?!"
Of course food was her first concern.
Well, we got checked into our room and then headed to base to pick up my boy. When I saw him, I think I almost fainted. I was so happy. I gave him a big hug and a kiss and I just looked at him for a second completely in love all over again and it was fantastic.
He went to get his stuff and grabbed his friend (The friend was to keep my sister busy while we had time alone ;)) and we headed off base and back to our room.
I wish that I could tell you all about how much fun this trip was, but honestly, there is NOTHING to do in 29 Palms, we swam in the hotel next to ours' pool and hung out in our air conditioned hotel room. We ate some food in the various popular restraunt around the area (Denny's, MickyDs, Mexican restaurant with a name that escapes me, BK), but honestly, I had a great time. When you're apart for so long, you just get used to missing the person you're away from, it's as if you just start to not feel the missing any more because it's a normal feeling. But when I saw him, it all came back at once how much I had missed him.
And lucky me, because my sister actually kinda hit it off withe J's friends (their names are the same actually...it got really confusing!) We're going back!
I get to return to my Marine again next week. And I already got work off and everything! I'm so excited. Even more so this time because I know what to expect and we'll be better prepared for the little amount of time that we get to spend together.
In other news, J told me yesterday that it's looking like their until won't be deploying until after the new year. That makes me very happy. I told him that I like that timeline much better than deploying this year. That means he might be home for Christmas! And we could possibly find time to get married when it's not on pre-depolyment leave : P I do not want to do that. I think it'd be a good idea because it's going to set us up financially for our future becasue until he comes back from deployment I will be living at home and getting his BAH for where I live. But I'll also have my own job and won't have much for living expenses so we can just save all that money and have quite a lot saved when he comes home and it's time for us to think about getting us a place to live and get all settled down, but I don't want to send my brand new husband off to war after being married for a week. Not cool. But, I guess I just need to get used to the reality of our situtation.
On the bright side, if his unit gets disbannded after this deployment, I might NEVER have to live in 29 Stumps!
