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Thursday, July 31, 2008

Dr. DeAnn

Well I had to go back to the doctor this week as I was still in pain. Two whole weeks of pain. Let me tell you, it's not fun.
I had called in to talk to the consulting nurse and she wanted me to be seen right away. She said my symptoms sounded like kidney stones. Colin had taken the van downtown to meet the bus, so I begged a ride from a neighbor to get the van so I could make it to an afternoon appointment with my doctor. I almost requested a different doctor, but I didn't.
So I made it to my doctor appointment and it was very frustrating. I explained that the pain seemed deeper than just some back muscles and that it had moved (it started on the left, but now it was mostly on the right and sometimes on both sides). My doctor was still talking like it was my back. Hello?!! Is anyone listening???? Obviously, my doctor was not. I explained that it didn't feel like a sprain. He asked if I thought it might be my Hodgkin's coming back. Hmmmm...who is the doctor here? Aren't there tests that would tell you exactly what is going on?
Finally he said 'I suppose it could possibly be your kidneys' and he ordered a test for that. He also ordered physical therapy for my back and an MRI of my spine. Still stuck on the back sprain!
Yesterday I got an email from my doctor saying that there was some bacteria growing from my test. I have a bladder infection, maybe a kidney infection, too. I'm now on an antibiotic and I'm having an ultrasound to look for kidney stones next Friday.
So it looks like I was right about it not being my back and my doctor was wrong. He sure didn't listen very well and didn't take measures to rule out other possibilities. So just call me Dr. DeAnn. I diagnosed this one better than my soon to be gone doctor (he's moving his practice to another town, thankfully).

Monday, July 28, 2008

VBS and Back Pain

Well, I haven't written for a while for two reasons. First, I was busy with VBS this week at our church and second, I've been trying to cope with the pain in my back.
VBS was great! Ian had a really good time. I was the craft leader for the elementary group. The crafts went pretty well. Our first craft was the only one that was a little tricky. It was a really cute name tag with a horse wearing a cowboy hat. The kids loved it, but it had a few too many steps for trying to finish in 20 minutes! Thankfully, the rest of the crafts were easier.
My back bugged me the entire week. Every day after VBS I took a nap. I'm still dealing with my back, but I'm not sure that I agree with my doctor's diagnosis. For one, he didn't check out anything. No feeling my lymph nodes, no blood test to check and make sure it wasn't an infection. He just said 'you probably sprained your back' and had me get an xray of my back. The other reason I disagree is the pain has been moving around. It started on my left with a little pain on my right and now it's the opposite. Weird. I suppose if it doesn't get better soon I'll need to go get a second opinion. *Sigh* I don't like going to the doctor. Here's hoping it will get better all on its own.
We did have a little bit of excitement around our house on Saturday. Colin and Ian went to the Festival of People downtown and went to the classic car show. They brought home some elephant ears for us to munch on. Ian and I were sitting in the living room when I started hearing a lot of cars going by our house. I looked out the screen door and saw lots of classic cars going by. There must have been 15 or 20 cars going by. They stopped in front of our house. I told Ian to tell Colin that the cars were at our house. Colin leaned out the door and one of the guys asked for directions. Turns out they got lost on the way to someones house! Nice for us though, part of the car show came to our house!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Life Since Our Trip

Well, life is slowly returning to normal since we got home. I still have some laundry to do from the trip. I got slowed down by whatever I did to my back. We've all been a little more tired than usual. Even Ian has been sleeping past 8 am, which is almost unheard of for him.
Even though my back has been messed up, I was able to do a little decorating. This past Monday night, someone on our home school group posted a Queen bed frame (headboard and foot board). I emailed them, sure that someone else had asked for this. To my surprise, I had an email telling me that it was mine if I wanted it.
Even though I hadn't even seen it, I'd only read a description of it, I wanted it.
So I made arrangements to pick it up after my doctor's appointment and after some errands and after Colin got off work.
It turned out to be a very pretty bed frame. Colin set it up the second day we had without even being asked. I am happy to say that my pillow will no longer slip between the mattress and the wall. Hooray!!
I'm calling this more of my freestyle decorating because that's exactly what it was. Free! I'll post a picture for you. It's really great. It's a blessing!

Friday, July 18, 2008

Tales From Our Trip- The Final, Final Chapter

Okay, back to the story. What are we ready for? Day 10?? I think that's right. So here we go.
Day 10: Sunday morning. I woke up feeling much better. We gassed up the van, took it through a car wash to get rid of all the bugs and headed over to Wal-mart to pick up some supplies. Colin wanted to find something to make the weather stripping on our van windshield stop flapping. We had a little section in front of the passengers side that kept coming up and flapping. Very annoying. We also wanted to pick up something for breakfast as all the motel had was make your own waffles and those aren't usually great. So we went in and came out with more than we had planned on. We broke the first rule of shopping: don't go hungry!
So we came out with chips, lunch meat, buns, a hoagie to be shared by everyone (we had done this previously on the trip when we stopped in Evanston, WY. We had been in a grocery store to use the bathroom and grab a snack when we saw the lady in the deli department making a humongous sub sandwich..it had 30 pieces of meat! It was half of a loaf of sour dough french bread. It only cost about $5. It ended up feeding about 5 of us). Colin had located some super glue for the windshield and we found a few other things to buy.
After mending the windshield problem we were on our way! Off to see the Golden Spike.
Well, okay, not the Golden Spike, it's in a museum in California. We went to the site where they drove in the Golden spike to connect the railroads creating the transcontinental railroad. Boy, was this out of the way! It's out in the middle of nowhere. It was really neat, though. We stayed long enough to see them move the trains and we watched a Charlie Brown movie telling us all about the Transcontinental Railroad. We got a couple of neat souvenirs; a train Christmas ornament, a book to read to Ian, and of course, a magnet for our fridge. Our fridge is full of magnets from places we've been, it's a fun reminder of some great memories and experiences.
We had our lunch (a slice of the hoagie sandwich) as we headed out again. We paused long enough to take our picture by the sign for the Golden Spike. Some other people stopped, too, so we took turns taking pictures for each other. Then we left.
Guess what else they do in the middle of nowhere, Utah?? They test rockets! So we were able to stop and look at some that they had on an outside display. Colin really liked that! We just stopped for a minute, though, we were getting behind schedule.
We headed back toward the main highway and drove for quite a while seeing mainly farms and ranches and some beautiful horses. Our next big stop would be in Boise, Idaho, where we would stop for dinner. It was about 7:30 when we got to Boise. We headed to Cracker Barrel for dinner. I had a $25 gift certificate to use there (I'd earned it through My Points). It paid for dinner and the tip. Hooray! Dinner was great. I had their fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. Ian had a kids meal with fried shrimp. Colin had French toast and bacon and an egg, I think. I had a bite of that French toast...yum! Unfortunately, the gift certificate did not pay for our souvenir shopping, which cost almost as much as our meal! We did find a cute gift for Colin's parents to thank them for watching Dilly.
We left Cracker Barrel quite happy. We headed toward an historical landmark that had significance to Colin's family. A marker of a massacre on the Oregon Trail. One of Colin's ancestor's helped rescue one of the survivors and even fought the attacking Indians. Again, we took pictures.
Finally, we were on our way to Ontario, OR to find our motel. We stayed in Ontario on our honeymoon moving trip to Washington. We got there around 9:30, which seems to be our average arrival time. We were so happy when they told us that the pool was open 24 hrs. a day (even though the signs said 11). So we finally got to go swimming!!! Ian and Colin even got up in the morning and went swimming a second time while I slept some more! We had breakfast and went over to Jiffy Lube to get the fluids in the van checked and topped off and then we headed for home.
We stopped for lunch at Taco Time in La Grand and ate the crunchy tacos I had been craving. We also stopped in Yakima at a fruit stand where we bought some cherries and they gave Ian an apple. That boy gets more stuff given to him!
Colin took us over White Pass and we got some pretty cool pictures of Mt. Rainier...I posted one earlier, so I'm sure you've already seen it. It was a very pretty way to go.
We got to Colin's parent's house around 7:30 and I was really hoping to get home before dark. I hadn't planned on Colin's mouth. Boy, was he keyed up. 10 hours of driving and he'd had caffeine. At 8:30, I announced that it was 8:30. It didn't make him budge a bit, he kept talking. I finally had to ask him to come make room for Dilly's crate. He did a little. I think his mom did a lot more. In this process, we discovered why the floor where I was sitting was all wet. Colin hadn't pushed in the drain plug in our cooler, so all the melting ice was leaking into our van. I think it's still drying out. And yes, Colin was still standing around talking. So I took the leash from him and got Dilly and put her in her crate and said we needed to go. By the time we left it was already after 9. I was so tired and ready to be home.
After we arrived home, Colin went to get our house key from our neighbor and talked some more! I believe he talked for about 45 minutes!!! It was long enough for me to walk the dog and pretty much unload the van by myself. I love Colin, but sometimes he can just talk too much! I got very annoyed with him and he apologized and we both realized we were very exhausted from our trip. We had big plans for getting things done the next day, but I think mostly, we slept. Oh, wait, Colin did mow the lawn and do a couple of things. The road trip really hit him hard Wednesday morning when he tried to get up and go to work! He tried at least three times. Once at 5:30, so he could walk to the bus. Once at 6:00 so he could drive to the bus and once at 7:00 so he could drive to work. None of these worked and he finally realized that he was just exhausted and ended up taking a sick day. We slept the majority of Wednesday in our own bed, which is nothing like a hammock! It's good to be home.
So there you go, I finally did it! I got to the end of the story. I think I'll it it the way any proper story ends.
The End

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Tales From Our Trip- The Final Chapter- I Hope!

Okay, I am really going to try to finish the stories from our trip. My back is cooperating for the moment. So here goes!
Day 8: Thursday. I could feel that the end was rapidly approaching. This day we headed back into Rocky Mountain National Park and went to Bear Lake, where I did not see a bear. I did see a beautiful lake that we walked all the way around. I think it was about a half a mile around it. I was still having trouble breathing with the altitude and what was left of my sinusitis. Most of the family decided to go on a mile hike to see a waterfall (Alberta Falls, I believe it was called). My mom and I opted to wait. She has bad knees, so it wouldn't be good for her. I really wanted to go, but I knew that I just didn't have enough air and it wouldn't be a smart decision for me to go. So we sat around and talked while we waited. Ian went with Colin and somewhere on the way, he managed to fall down and skin his knee. Thankfully, Aunt Becca had band aids!
By the way, Bear Lake is a very popular place to visit in the park! We had to park in a parking lot several miles away and ride a visitor's shuttle to and from the lake. Ian was so tired, he fell asleep on the ride back to the van!
Day 8: The 4th of July. Happy Independence Day! Becca's sister and her family was supposed to come out and visit, but her kiddos got sick, so it was just the ten of us. We spent the morning resting and then making potato salad and deviled eggs. We went up to a big rock to try to get a family photo. It was a bit too sunny, so they weren't the best pictures. We decided to try again later at a different location. Bob had planned for us to watch the fireworks that Estes Park sets off from the area near Twin Sisters. It was really hot when we left so we kind of forgot how cold it gets around dark. We were sitting there, waiting for fireworks and freezing and then tons of people came. I am sad to say that some of them who sat very near to our children, were less than sober. We moved the kids closer, but even then the topic of discussion from these people was pretty disgusting. Then the fireworks started, but they were very far away and kind of behind a tree. I sat there thinking, I'd like to go sit in the van. I thought that for a while and finally I said it out loud. So my mom, my dad, Ian and I all went back to the van. It was yummy warm in the van! We were all happy to be out of the cold and we could even see the fireworks a little better from the van. I was really happy that we went to the van early because it was already dark and my mom has to go slow. She would have had a hard time if she had tons of people walking with her while trying to find her way carefully in the dark.
So the fireworks idea was a good one, it just didn't work out the way we had envisioned!
Day 9: Time to say good-bye and head home. We cleaned up the cabin and loaded up the vans. There was crankiness and sadness. We were all ready to sleep in our own beds in our own homes, but reluctant to say good-bye, knowing it would quite a while before we see each other again. I was up at 4:30 am, I just couldn't sleep and I felt like I had a lot to get done before we left. Besides, the bed we had been sleeping in would have been heaven for Gilligan. It swayed and cupped you just like a hammock. So every time one of us would roll over the other would rock and rock. Colin compared it to a waterbed, but I preferred the hammock comparison. Sure, it had waves, but no waterbed I ever slept in was cupped like this bed!
We headed out around nine and drove to Estes Park, where we tried one more time to find a pocket knife for Ian. Let me explain this to you. On Tuesday, when we all had gone shopping in Estes Park, Bob and Becca found pocket knives for Hannah and Emily with their names on them and Colorado on the other side. The girls used them for whittling and Ian was rather envious. Andrew already had a pocket knife, so Ian was the only kid without one. So Colin thought it would be neat to get one for Ian. So on our second trip to Estes Park, we went to the store where Bob and Becca had found the knives, only they didn't have the name Ian (sorry Ian, it's almost like trying to find my name somewhere, talk about next to impossible!). We decided to give it one more try before we left Colorado. We just wanted a pocket knife for Ian. It didn't matter if it had his name on it. So we went to almost every store in town. I kid you not! If it was downtown and had even the most remote possibility, we went in. We did find a tiny Swiss Army knife, but it didn't have much on it and it was almost $20....keep looking! We found scary looking blades at least five inches long. Uhhh... not for a 7 yr. old!!!!! Finally, we stopped in the Colorado Homestead store where Ian had purchased two light up globes and a stuffed Bison that Grandpa named Billy. They didn't have any pocket knives. We asked if they knew of any stores that might have a pocket knife suitable for a 7 yr. old. The lady told us she was certain that the store by Subway had them. Oh, that store, by where we STARTED our shopping??!!!
So we went there and at first, I thought it was another dead end, but then the sun shone through the window onto a display and harp music began to play!!! There it was a whole display of pocket knives with elk or wolves and Estes Park on them. Ahh, sweet success!!! It only took an hour to find! Well, three trips and one hour on the last trip! Colin chose one with an elk for himself and Ian chose one with a wolf howling at the moon (well I helped him choose, he was too distracted by the marionette puppets). I also found a brown ball cap with a moose and Estes Park embroidered on it for me! Ian and Colin had purchased hats on our first trip, so now we all had hats that said 'Estes Park'. Ian used his money and bought himself a horse marionette puppet. He was very excited about it! Bob's kids had been in to puppets and it got Ian excited. Andrew bought a coyote puppet and Emily had purchased a horse marionette puppet (not the same as the one Ian got) and all the kids had put on several puppet shows using puppets and stuffed animals. It was very cute!
So now, with our purchases in hand, it was time to head for home. First stop: Brigham City, Utah.
Now keep in mind, every motel we stayed at had a pool and so far, we'd arrived too late or too tired to use them. Colin was determined to get there early enough to go swimming this evening.
We stopped in Loveland, CO to grab some lunch, get the fluid and tires checked and gas up. Good thing we had the tires checked. They had been affected by the altitude. The pressure was at 42 lbs!
For lunch, I had a burger at Burger King. When we reached Wyoming, we pulled over at a rest stop and ended up getting 50 cent ice cream cones at McDonald's. I'm not sure which one got me, the burger or the cone, but I started feeling bad. Colin had to make several extra pit stops, so I could be sick. I messed up our schedule! I think it was almost 9 by the time we got to our motel. I wasn't going swimming since I wasn't feeling good. Colin didn't go swimming either!
Okay, I thought this was going to be it, but my back says, enough! So hang in there, we're really close to the end. Only two more days to tell about. I will finish the story soon!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

A New Twist

Well, I had planned to finish writing about our trip and eventually, I will. For now I'm dealing with a new twist on life, literally. Saturday I woke up with an achy back. I didn't think too much about it, figuring it would feel better by the afternoon. It didn't. In fact, it still didn't feel better Monday morning, so I called and talked to the consulting nurse and she said I needed to get it checked out.
So Tuesday morning I saw my doctor and he thinks that I pulled some muscles in my lower back (like a sprained ankle, but in your back). He gave me a muscle relaxer. I took the first one around 5 and thought it didn't really do much. By 9 my body felt like it was falling asleep without me, so I went to bed. I haven't slept so well for a long time. Now I'm scared to take one of those pills during the day (since I have Ian and Dilly to take care of). I promise I'll try to finish the stories from our trip soon, but for now, I need to rest.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Tales From our Trip: The Final Chapter- Almost

Well, I'd better finish this before I forget the details!
Day 7: Let me start by saying I think this was my favorite day of the whole trip. The whole day was orchestrated by God's hand, I'm certain of it.
This was originally going to be a day where Colin went on a huge hike with my brother and his family (we're talking at least 3 hrs. up a mountain), but Colin had been on so many hikes already that we decided we'd like to go back into Estes Park and play some Miniature Golf. I had spotted a place where it cost only $2.50 a game. Well, you get what you pay for. The place was pretty old. They took care of the real grass and the flowers, but the carpet for the golf was bumped up in places and it made the game a little harder than it should be!
We had fun anyway! It was sunny and warm and we could smell some yummy BBQ the whole time we played. The lady that was working at the golf place took a shine to Ian. She gave him some tips as we went along and laughed when Ian got super excited. We finally made it to the last hole, where we could win a free game if we made a hole in one. Rats, we all missed. Only, here came the lady, who kept giving Ian another golf ball to try again for the free game. She must have given him five balls. He missed every time. The man that worked there was started to get frustrated with the lady (me, too, I was hot and ready to go). The lady laughed and told us 'we never do this' as she gave Ian another ball. Finally, I just had to say it was time to go. Since it was lunchtime and we were hungry, we followed our noses to the BBQ place. Smokin' Dave's BBQ. Yum-um. I'd go there every week if it were near me. Delicious! Our food took a while to get (probably because none of us ordered the BBQ meat, we all ordered things that had to be cooked after we ordered). It was worth the wait, though. Colin had a Buffalo Stack (two buffalo burgers, sauteed mushrooms and onions, a special sauce, tomato..I can't remember what else, but I got a bite or two and it was super yummy). I had a grilled chicken sandwich and Ian had chicken strips. We all had fries, which they make there...yum again!
After the BBQ, we headed to downtown Estes Park so we could replace a toy for Ian. He had just purchased it the day before, but it had fallen and broke. We had purchased it at the Colorado Homestead Store, so we headed back there again. As soon as we got there, Ian announced he had to go to the bathroom. This meant walking all the way back past way we had parked our van. We quickly paid for the toy and Colin gave Ian a piggyback ride to the bathroom. I had opted to stay at the store, but soon realized I needed to find the bathroom soon, too. So I was about a half a block behind Colin and Ian. Not close enough to tell Colin I was right behind him or close enough for him to notice I was back there. I was close enough to see them go into the building before I got there. Of course, we completely missed each other, so I called Colin on his cellphone to see where he was. He started explaining where he was, then said something I couldn't understand and then said, 'just get over here!'
So I hurried over to where Colin was and was surprised to see who was with him. His cousin, Chris! Chris is from out here in Washington, but lately he's been in Mexico and New Mexico. I think he's been on an extended vacation. You never know where he is (he's also an MRI tech and travels with his job, filling in for 3 months at a time all over the US). Chris and his girlfriend, Linda had just gotten into Estes Park. They were staying at a hostel, but couldn't check in until 3, so they were exploring the town. I guess Linda had a friend getting married in Boulder the coming weekend. We talked to them a while and walked around. I took pictures to prove we really did run into each other over 1000 miles from home!
So now you can see why I said God orchestrated this day. We weren't supposed to be in Estes Park according to the plans we had made. Ian's toy broke or we probably wouldn't have gone downtown and everywhere we went, things took just a little longer than they should have and we didn't leave the cabin as early as we had wanted to!

Saturday, July 12, 2008

One View of The Waterfall At Wild Basin

 
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Tales From Our Trip Continued

So where was I? Oh yes, you were waiting with bated breath to hear about the next days of our trip.
Day 4: This was Sunday, so we had a little church service in our cabin. We sang songs, Bob read a story from the Bible and we prayed. Later we headed over to Wild Basin and hiked to a waterfall. A real waterfall, not a wimpy waterfall like what I hiked to in Hawaii. This one was very powerful and swift.
Day 5: Bob took us all into Rocky Mountain National Forest and drove us up Trail Ridge Road (okay, I'm pretty sure about the name of the road, but I could be off a little bit, just go with it for the sake of the story). I don't remember the exact elevation (perhaps because the altitude sickness kicked back in), but it was high. Well over 10,000 feet. I'm thinking close to 14,000, but I can't be sure. By the way, did you know altitude sickness can make you very cranky, besides feeling lightheaded, headachy and breathless?? We found out about the cranky very quickly. All 10 of us started getting cranky, so we decided it was time to head to a lower elevation. So we headed to Never Summer Ranch which is in a valley and we got out and hiked a half mile with the hot sun beating down on us. Ian started throwing a fit and I ended up forcing him to drink some water and even poured a little down his shirt (he had a sweatshirt on, which was way too hot for the area we were now in). I think he was getting heat exhaustion and dehydrated. He got very angry with me for getting his shirt wet, but within minutes of doing that, he completely calmed down and returned to being a happier boy. I, on the other hand, ended up with a very sunburned scalp. Should have been wearing a hat!
Day 6: We lay low for the morning. Played a few games and in the afternoon we headed into Estes Park to do the tourist thing. Walked around, shopped, got ice cream for the kiddos and some of the big kids, too. Colin, Ian and I saw some people walking around with old fashioned photos and we decided we had to do that. Colin and I had one done on our first anniversary when we were in Victoria, so we really wanted one that you could see Ian in (note, I did not say that we didn't have one without Ian, he was there, you just couldn't see him. I think I was almost 4 months pregnant when we had the first old fashioned photo taken!)
So Colin and Ian dressed up like guys from the old west and I got to put on a hat with some big feathers and an old fashioned dress. It was a hoot and we got a pretty neat picture for a souvenir.
I had wanted to play miniature golf when we finished shopping, but by the time we finished shopping, we were all tired and ready to head back to the cabin for some much needed rest.
Okay, that should hold you for a bit. I'll write more later.

The Cabin

 

Well, here's a photo of the cabin we stayed in. I know, it looks like a really big treehouse. It kind of felt like one, too. It had a whole lot of stairs, which would have been fine, except for the altitude. Sometimes, after climbing the stairs, I felt like the big, bad wolf. I was ready to huff and puff, but I probably didn't have enough air to blow your house down!
Other than the altitude combined with a bajillion stairs, it was absolutely wonderful staying in our rented treehouse!
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Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Colorado? or Washington?

 

This is actually a picture of Mount Rainier (pronounced ray-near). I took this on our way home. I think there was actually more snow in the mountains here at home than there was in Colorado (and both of them had snow close to the same time in early June).
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Tales From Our Trip

Well, it's been a while since I last posted anything. Just about two weeks, I think. Long enough to have had our vacation and be back to "normal". So here's a little synopsis of how our trip went.
Last day before vacation: I packed, packed, packed, trying to make-up lost time from getting sick. I was on an antibiotic and prednisone, so I didn't even get to sleep. I did blog and said we were leaving at 6 am in the morning if nothing happened, which something usually does happen to make us leave late.
Day 1: Something did happen to make us late! Colin had been opening and closing the doors on our van most of the evening before and early in the morning. I noticed a funny clicking noise and we realized we had a dead battery. AAA came at 7:30 am and jump started our battery so we could head out. We purchased a new battery for the van as the one we had was marginal at best and probably not what we wanted to rely on for a 3000 mile trip! God was watching out for us on that one. It was much easier to deal with at home rather than somewhere on the road.
After replacing the battery, we drove through Washington and Oregon. We stopped for dinner in Ontario, OR. I was ready to stop at this point, but Colin had reservations at a KOA in Twin Falls, Idaho (or just outside of it). So we drove on, with me muttering about getting a motel room sometime soon and could we just forget about the KOA? Well, no, we needed to get there. Colin was bound and determined to get us there. We got there, but by the time we got there it was 10:30 at night. Colin had forgotten that we crossed over into Mountain Time somewhere near the Idaho border. It was pitch black by the time we got to the KOA, Colin's eyes were bugging him after driving Idaho roads after dark (we will never do that again. Those roads need to restriped! You can't see the stripes on the highway and it's a curvy road and the speed limit is 75. Talk about scary!). We drove to our campsite only to find that it was beside a road in the campground. That would have been handy to access our site if two vehicles hadn't parked there completely blocking the road and the good access to our site. Since it was already 10:30 we couldn't really go and find the owners of the vehicles and ask them to move. Plus, somehow Colin had managed to bury the tent somewhere in the bottom of everything we packed. So I voiced the same idea I had voiced off and on since Ontario. Could we please find a motel? So Colin used the GPS that he had borrowed from his dad and started looking up motels in the area and calling them.
Motel # 1: Days Inn...completely booked.
Motel # 2: Best Western....$130 a night with a AAA discount...uuuhhh, no thank you.
Motel # 3: Holiday Inn Express...$107 a night with AAA discount....good-bye yard sale profit....hello sleep!
So we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express. It was great! Nice room, nice beds, really good breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage gravy , biscuits, cinnamon rolls, juice....I'm not sure what other things they had, Colin brought my breakfast to me). I would go there again in a heartbeat!
By the way, we were driving for about 14 hrs. I never want to be in any vehicle for that long again, ever! I think 10 hrs. is pretty close to my max.
Day 2: We left Twin Falls after a quick stop at the mall for more things to plug into the DVD player and getting gas in the van at $3.85 a gallon. I wanted to stop at Shoshone Falls, but Colin couldn't find it. The GPS did one of it's many interesting things and led us out of town in a weird out of the way direction. I'm sure it was something Colin clicked on, but by the end of the trip I was telling the GPS it didn't know anything. I'll try to explain as it comes up. Let's just say for now, both times we were in Twin Falls it got Colin lost. Colin gets lost in Twin Falls no matter what. He did when we were there in 1999 and he did again this trip. Silly.
So this day we drove about 10 hrs. to Laramie, Wyoming. We saw huge energy windmills on the way, tons of them. By the time we reached Laramie, I was craving a steak because every third billboard had an advertisement for steak (it is cattle country). So after we checked in to the Comfort Inn, we went to a restaurant nearby called Wingers. They had good steak, but the service was pretty slow and they have the dumbest appetizer....popcorn. I am SOOOOO glad I was never a waitress at a place that serves popcorn for an appetizer. What a mess! Ian loved it! He did end up having to eat some of his popcorn off our freshly cleaned table as he started digging for the really yellow pieces and dumped a whole bunch on the table. After our yummy dinner we crashed in our motel room. What a long day!
Day 3: Time to finish the trip. We woke up and headed out of town (a weird way again thanks to the GPS. I know this GPS is a girl, it has a girl's voice and it likes to send us on the scenic route!). It only took us about 3 hrs. or so to get to Colorado. We met up with my family in Lyons, CO and followed them to the cabin. The cabin is at an elevation of 8000 feet. Hello altitude!
Okay, it's late. I will continue this later.