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 compound camp.  It was really good though, so I'm not complaing anymore!
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...

591 Miles

You see this little map here? Tomorrow morning, I am embarking on this journey!  After all my complaining and being sad about wanting to see J, I get to go and see him!  We are both so excited we can hardly stand it. After four months of waiting and not knowing what even the next week would mean for us, we finally get to stand face to face. I have not been a very good blogger for the past few days due to the fact that I've been so busy trying to get shift trades at work, and that's where I typically do all my blogging. So for that I apologize, but I just thought I would share with you my exciting news. 

When I return, I will provide a long picture-filled post about how much fun we had together. I promise. The only down-side of this whole situation, is the fact that we basically only get to have one full day together. It's definitely not enough time, but certainly one full day together is far better than no days together at all. 

Hopefully we will have a safe trip and a good time!