St. Louis Excitement

So yes, I ended up going to St. Louis to see my mother, who just got out of the hospital. It was glorious. I really just needed to be with my family.

A few great/not so great things about flying:
canceled flights
6am flights that equal 3:45 awake time
people on flights that ring the flight attendant button as we are about to take off, just to ask for a coke
the flight attendant who laughed in said coke drinker's face
having to check my bag because the overhead bins were full
getting hit on my a Mexican while waiting for my bag to show up
broken planes that can't be used
no crew to push a plane away from a gate
redirecting an entire airport to take off from the north instead of the south because the winds changed
flying in a thunder storm (seriously worst flight ever)
not getting beverage service because the turbulence made it unsafe for the flight attendants to move
getting home an hour+ late and not getting any sleep

some great (and just a few not so great) things about being home
watching Elizabeth and Elizabeth the Golden Age
yelling at a selfish old lady who is getting a Christian hand out but not acting Christian at all
swimming with my brothers
wearing a bikini around a bunch of curious 11-14 year olds (creepy!) and old men (double creepy)
Steak 'N Shake!
Rocky, the cutest and most beautiful golden retriever ever
Rocky waking me up at 4am, pretending he wanted to go outside but really he just wanted to play
camp out in the living room
dinner and a movie (Mama Mia, so awesome!) with Mom
really awesome wine from a newly opened local winery
not being able to ship wine to Maryland=sad
breakfast in bed, complete with flowers on the tray

I should be flying

Right now I should be on an airplane. But I'm not. My flight was freaking canceled! Of course, only my flight from Baltimore to Philly was canceled. My flight from Philly to St. Louis was still a go. And I could have probably driven from here to my brother's and had him or his wife drive me to the Philly airport. Except I didn't think I would have enough time driving in rush hour traffic to make it in time. If only they had given me a little more notice!

Of course, there were no other flights out of here tonight. I think there was one that went through North Carolina, but either the woman was a moron (which I suspected at first, which is why I called back and got someone else) or it was full (which the someone else said).

So, I have a flight first thing in the morning. And by first thing, I mean 6am. Which means, once again, I will be up before the sun. I was going to be up late tonight so I'll probably get about as much sleep. But, I can stay up much easier than I can get up early. Tomorrow will be a long morning.

But at least I'll be home then.

My Baby is 10!

Today is my baby brother's birthday. Harrison is 10! It's quite hard to believe. Next thing I know they're all going to be in high school. So scary.

He tried to convince me that he was 11. I don't know why. But it's not true. Thank goodness.

As suspected he requested cherries in the snow. He also wants to get a fly fishing rod/lessons. The boy loves to fish.

This is the "not so little anymore" guy, giving me the play-by-play of the Cardinals game since I never get to go to Busch anymore!

Walking

John and I have recently begun a walking routine in order to combat some of our winter fat. You would think we would have started this in the Spring. But we remained lazy. After being so active in Colorado, though, we realized we should be like that all the time. We're not hiking mountains every day, but it's something.

One thing I love about where I live is that I can take a walk every night and not worry about getting attacked. Well, we do run the risk of a dog or cat getting us, but I'm willing to take that chance. I am more likely going to be able to get the cat then a large scary man in the city. I was freaked out to discover, though, how many cats do wander around freely in the area. They should really go away.

Anyway, I've been wondering if our daily walks are the cause of my back soreness. In which case, once I work up enough muscle it should feel better. I still may end up going to the doctor though. Just to check things out. And we all know how much I hate doctors.

It's pouring right now, which means we are not walking. I would be happy if it kept on raining for awhile. It tends to rain for 20 minutes, at most, during sumer storms. A long continuing of this would be great.

Hell'a Crazy

It has been hell'a crazy these last two weeks. Mom's been in and out of the hospital. Major Asshole (really, he's a major in the army) has been living up to his name well. I have been writing for a science book. And my back has been killing me. (stupid curvy back!)

But yesterday we went down to see John's family. I had a relaxing day hearing stories of my darling when he was little and playing with puppies.

And tonight we made fantastic pizza. Mine had alfredo sauce, green and white onions, red and yelow peppers, chicken, garlic, spinach, and a bit of basil and cilantro, topped with goat cheese and mozzarella. It was amazingly great.

Now it is thunderstorming.

Hopefully I will make it through the next 4 days at work. Then I will be home and will finally feel like I'm doing something to help the family through all this insanity.

Oh, and I can eat Seak 'N Shake while I'm home! Yay!

Fretting isn't the best word

Currently worried about:
-my mom's health
-my little brothers in general
-that a certain judge will continue to make horrible decisions
-that I will one day be brought up on assault charges because I hired someone to beat the living hell out of a certain person

I could seriously throw up right now I'm so upset

This feels like a good time to revisit this poem:


Old Spice and Kitchen Knives

Some days I sit, one finger between
my teeth, imagining how easy

it would be, holding the cold
blade of a kitchen knife against

your throat. Listening to pleas fighting
past shallow breath, dim

words echoing in the air until
I push harder, deeper, then cut.

Other days I sit, one finger
between my teeth, imagining how hopeless
it would be to forget. You holding me

on your shoulders at my first
concert, your hands over my ears,
muffling fireworks, the smell

of Old Spice deodorant, how I used to dab
it under my nose to remember your scent,
that you were by my side as the anesthesia

forced me to sleep, as it wore off after
surgery. Though I try, it is hopeless to forget
building the sand box in the backyard,

hammering hand over hand or the hours
we spent in the kitchen frying
chicken, stirring homemade gravy.

Some days I sit, one finger between
my teeth, knowing it is impossible.

More on flying

Here's another reason why people shouldn't fly. Delays!

Of course I hear about this as I'm pondering how to make a quick trip back to St. Louis. Blah!

I hate to fly

I guess it's good that I've had this vacation tow rite about, because otherwise my blog would be really boring. There's just nothing else I feel like saying. Maybe that will pick up.

Anyway, this is the story of our return trip from Denver to Baltimore.

We left the cabin pretty early, because I wasn't sure what kind of Denver work-week traffic we would hit. Turns out, none. So we got to the airport about an hour before we needed to. We dealt with a nasty woman at the counter where we were checking our bags. She got all snippy because we were asking about our bottle of mead. And when I said I wanted to put it in my bag, which she had put on the belt already, she said it wouldn't matter. She was just annoying.

She was also the woman trying to convince a man from Nigeria that it was no big deal that they now charge for checked bags. Which is why we had to wait so long just to get our two bags checked. She took forever with him.

We ate some food and tried to kill time. There was a lot of sitting and Soduku. Then it was time to board, yay! If you haven't flown in awhile, they call boarding groups. We were group 3. So we sat patiently and waited for them to call group 3. They did, we got in line. The line kind of curved into a candy cane shape. Well, when they called group 4, these 2 group 4 people decided to get in line in front of me rather than go to the end of the candy cane. They just kind of tried to meld into the line. I was not pleased. John just let them go in front of him, but I stayed in my spot and forced them behind me. But the entire time we were going to the plane they kept trying to get in front of me. SO finally I just let them, so I was in line with John again. Note, one of these people was foreign and turns out she was totally clueless about everything. But I still don't forgive her.

We had a short layover in Dallas, which is a horrible place to be. But we were only supposed to be there about 30 minutes, once we got to our new gate, before boarding. So we sit down, John goes to get a snack. Then they changed our gate. Luckily it was nearby so we didn't have to rush to it. But still, kind of annoying. And apparently they change gates a lot in Dallas because we heard like 4 other gates changes just while we were waiting to board.

At our new gate we sat down to have our snack. But, we couldn't get the bottle of tea opening. I don't know if it was super glued shut or what. That bottle never opened. Then, we were told we would be boarding late. Our plane had just come in from Mexico and had to go through detox. There is apparently a whole thing with international flights that takes longer to transition. I guess it's too much to expect that they leave enough time for that if they know a plane is coming from outside the country.

Then the window screen wouldn't go down on our plane.

But yay, our bottle of mead didn't break!

That's really it. I was just in a bad mood that day so it all seemed so much worse. I really was ready to flip out. A few times. I am glad to not have to fly for awhile.

Bear Lake and Alberta Falls

The trip diary is almost over :(

One of the best hikes we did was around Bear Lake and then to Alberta Falls. We decided to start with the Bear Lake trail because it was shorter and not hard. When I was in CO before, the trail was closed due to snow. So it was really awesome actually being able to walk around the lake.



The trail is pretty flat and there's always something to see. The lake is pretty high up so you're close to peaks. There were still piles of snow along the sides of the trail, melt made it kind of swampy at some points. We also came across a tin stream that went from the woods to the lake. This was where we got proof that there are actually trout in Colorado. (We'd had our doubts after little luck fishing)



After that hike, we were going to take the shuttle down the mountain a bit and go to a new trailhead for the hike to Alberta Falls. But, we discovered that we could take a trail to the new trail. So we did that trail down the mountain then hiked up another mountain to Alberta Falls.

This is actually a pretty short trail. We got really hot because of the afternoon temp and the slight incline, but it wasn't bad. I did almost hit a man and his children who didn't understand that if you're going to walk at a snails pace you should move over and let people pass you.

Anyway, through the woods we went and then up to the falls: which were amazing! We went off the trail a bit and moved further up to the top of the falls.





The last day of our trip was pretty uneventful. We went into Estes Park to do some souvenir shopping. Then, we went to RMNP for some final hiking. But, it had been cloudy all morning and mother nature didn't want us to hike. We went to the gold river to look for a few more rocks but it started raining so we went back to the car and then back to the cabin. This was especially disappointing because we were going to take one nice picture of us in front of a mountain, but never got the chance.

The day was pretty cloudy and rainy so we didn't do much besides sit in the cabin and read. It did clear up in the later afternoon so we did some fishing and hammocking. But we spent the later evening cleaning up the cabin.

And that was pretty much the end. It was a completely amazing trip. It will be nice when I can afford to go every summer. If that ever happens.

I will post once more on my homeward travels, because it was just crazy. But that's all the fun exciting stuff. Yay Colorado!

White Water Rafting

I have no proof that John and I went white water rafting while we were in Colorado. That's mostly because I left my water-proof camera in the car. I wouldn't really have had any chances to take any pictures anyway, but still. I probably could have gotten one with it. Oh well, we still went. You'll have to take my word on it.

And now I'm ready to go again. Really, the time goes by so fast because it's freaking awesome. So the trip was over long before I was ready to be off the water. Now, we did do a really easy trip and our guide did a lot of the work, so next time it might not be so leisurely. But I am certain that it will be awesome.

On this trip we rafted the Poudre River. We did one part and then got out to avoid some Class IV rapids, drove a ways down, and got back in again. There were two good rapids that could have easily bounced me out of the boat. Luckily our guide gave me good warning so I just leaned in and avoided joining the fishes.

John was a the front of the boat so he got hit quite a lot by the water. I hid in the very back but still got soaked. I just didn't have to paddle as much. hehe. The water felt great though, because it was like 85/90 degrees that afternoon. It probably wouldn't have felt as nice falling in, as it was pretty cold, but splashes were great. I highly recommend people raft.