BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY. AGAIN. DAY 3

I'm going to save you some time and just say - See yesterday's morning description because the same thing happened again on this day. Even down to the McDonald's breakfast. Don't judge me.

Since I spent the day in Disneyland yesterday, I didn't need to go back there, so I turned my attention to the Disney Adventure Park. It's still Disneyland, in the way that Animal Kingdom and Epcot are still a part of Disney World, but it's across the walkway. You turn left instead of right after going through security.

You know, as much of a pain as it can be, I'm very grateful that Disney has a security stop before you go into the parks. Even though 9 out of 10 people walking in are just going in for funzies, it'll be that 10th a-hole that brings a gun in that decides that the lady who broke in line deserves to die for it. There was actually a fight in line at the Florida park the other day. Did you see the footage of that? Holy crap, when did we forget how to be decent humans in big groups? Did we ever know how? 

Anywhoodle.

I got to the park early again, and this time it was nearly deserted. Well, relatively speaking for a Disney Park. The first thing I got on was Soarin', which was slightly different from the one in Florida. If you've never been, Soarin' is a...well...I guess you'd say it is a kind of hang-gliding simulator. That doesn't sound right, but I guess it's close. Basically, you're sitting in a seat that lifts in the air and there is a big-ass screen in front of you showing arial views of different landscapes from around the world. Along with music, they pipe in wind, and sounds, and smells depending on what the landscape in front of you is. It's neat. I will say, however, that during the scene that shows you flying above a cattle drive, whoever designed which smells were piped in to that scene had clearly never been around cows before. 

From there I went over to the "Cars" section of the park, and it was so cool! It was just like being in what I would imagine Radiator Springs would look like in real life. They have classic rock and pop songs about driving and cars piped in over the loud speakers and all of the buildings look like they were pulled directly out of the movie. It was impressive. I had a lightning lane pass for the main ride, which was a lot of fun, and I got to get on fairly quickly despite the very crowded (by this time) queue line. 

I'm not sure how I feel about lightning lanes. It just feels like "look at me, I can afford to get in line ahead of you! Peasants!" but also, it's nice to not have to stand in line for hours if you can score the lane pass. I haven't made up my mind yet.

It was hot again on this day, and somehow maybe even worse because the Disney Adventure Park has less shade and more concrete than the Disneyland park. The heat just kind of bounces around and hits you from a lot of different angles. It feels meaner than the heat at home. Southern heat feels like a well meaning, but very hot and very wet grandma, is wrapping you in a steamed towel. In California, it feels like God has dowsed you with hot water and put you in a microwave because He's angry.

There is a section of the park that is designed like an actual boardwalk amusement park, but of course, much fancier. It has the giant Ferris wheel with the Micky face on it that you see on their advertisements. I got on that mainly for the shade, but it was fun! I'm not sure that I've ever ridden a real Ferris wheel before then! It was quiet and the breeze was nice, and it got me away from the crowds temporarily. 

Next, I rode the Tower of Terror (or whatever Avenger's name they are calling it now) and then a roller coaster. A wild mouse style, I think it's called. Well, maybe not, because it had a loopty-loop, but whatever. It was an Incredibles themed roller coaster and friends, after the droppy-drop and the loopty-loop, that was almost curtains for me. I get so incredibly (heh) motion sick sometimes. My sinuses are part of the problem, and some inner ear issues are the other, but when it hits me, dear Lord, it hits me hard. The thing is, I never know for certain if it's going to happen on things like amusement park rides, or in the car, or getting up from a chair, or what. Once I got almost comically ill from playing a first-person-POV video game. My brain and my stomach clearly don't get along, and sometimes they fight. I got off of that last ride convinced I'd be back in another Disney Property bathroom trying to stay alive, but fortuitously, I found a rogue Zofran in my purse! I got some when I had my gall bladder taken out, and I must have thrown one in my small cross body bag! Hallelujah. It saved my dignity and the concrete. I'm very sad you can't get those over the counter, because they are magical.

I walked around a bit more, but honestly, there wasn't as much for me to do in that park. You can argue that both parks are made specifically for kids, but there is plenty for adults as well, usually. In this one, it felt much more geared to children, plus it was SO DAMN HOT that I left and went to lunch in Downtown Disney. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but the food was good. I was seated by YET another group of children whose parents didn't give a damn about their behavior, and they were AGAIN doing high kicks and destroying the place around them, but then one kid did a high kick, somehow lost her balance, and landed on her face on the linoleum. Hard. God help me, I snorked. I tried not to, but...I mean. That did make everyone calm down a little, at least. 

Afterwards, I did what I did the day before and went back to the hotel, took a shower/nap, and changed clothes. I actually had another whole outfit I could wear! It was my University of Georgia outdoor outfit (It makes me look like the oldest UGA sorority social chair and I will not be explaining why I have this outfit) but when you need something cool to wear, you wear what you have. I did get one "Go Dawgs" from a cast member, so I'll be passing that along to someone who is an actual Georgia fan at a later date. 

I had made another dinner reservation at one of the swanky places inside the park, and again, I managed to get in early. I picked this restaurant solely because they had a cocktail on their menu that I have on my list. I can't remember if I've talked about my list or not and I can't be arsed to look before publishing this, but it was called a Pisco Sour, and it was amazing. It didn't make me sick, so I know it didn't have rum in it. The food was amazing too! It had cooled off considerably by the time I was done with dinner, so I did some souvenir shopping, went back to Downtown Disney to get ice cream at a place called "Salt and Straw" (I got the kind with mushrooms in it, and it was so very good.) and then went back to the hotel so I could see the fireworks from the balcony, looking left. I felt kind of bad that I didn't do more in the park, but it was fine, really. I did all the things I wanted to do, I almost barfed, and I had some alcohol and ice cream. What else did I need?

The blister on my foot was so much worse by this point that I was glad to be off of my feet, plus I had to go home the next day, so I repacked my backpack with clothes and souvenirs, got all my stuff together, and fell asleep. Thankfully my flight wasn't early the next day, so I could sleep in a bit. My Disneyland adventure was over, and it had been a lot of fun. Maybe minus the nausea, but even that was novel since I'd never been nauseous at Disneyland! 

(BTW, in case you're wondering why I'm not posting photos, I've been trying very hard to "be in the moment" while I've been traveling lately. I do take pictures, usually of my foot at places, but one day a while back I realized I had been spending so much time looking at things from behind my phone that I wasn't really SEEING what I was there to see or experiencing it as much as I could. God, that sounds pretentious, but I don't mean it to be. As much as I'd love a million photos of every place I travel, I think I'd rather have one or two photos and the memory of the experience. Maybe if I had a really nice camera, or was really talented as a photographer I'd feel differently, but looking at the world through my phone feels cheap, you know? No judgement on anyone who feels differently, though. That's just my vibe.)

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY. AGAIN. DAY 2

I got up at the absolute butt crack of dawn. I was exhausted from the travel day before, but my internal clock is on Central Time, so I didn't have a choice. I got up and got ready for the day.

I didn't mention this before, but I managed to pack everything for the trip in a travel backpack! I've never been able to do that before for a multi-day trip! I still overpacked (it's a sickness) but I had managed to roll everything up in small, scrunched up bundles and get it all stuffed in there. It was very convenient! One day I'll learn to pack only what I need, but it was not this day.

Because I now knew that the weather was hot here, I decided to wear something that was supposed to be "moisture wicking" and "cooling." We will circle back to this in a little bit, so don't forget.

I stopped at the McDonald's next door for breakfast - McGriddles for the win! - and went on to the park.

One thing that doesn't happen at Disneyland that is very common in Disney World, is something called "Rope Dropping." For the unwashed, that is where attendees at the park wait in frothed-jaw, muscle-straining, eyes-on-the-prize anticipation for the eternally smiling cast members to unclip the barrier ropes into each part of the park so they can wheel their SUV sized strollers as fast as possible to whatever ride they have first on their Disney App itinerary. 

Yeah, you could tell who was from out of town by the people who were scrambling to get into the park first thing in the morning. I didn't do that simply because breakfast took longer than I thought, but otherwise I just got there, went through security, beeped my magic band, took my picture so that they could eventually use it in whatever AI program that they have to track your face (allegedly) and walked in!

The very first thing I noticed was that the Disneyland Cinderella castle was much smaller than Sleeping Beauty one at Disney World. I mean, it was adequate. A good size. I'm sure it does the job just fine! However, there was a part of me that wondered if they would eventually put a lift kit and a loud engine in it, just to let you know it's just as good at the Disney World castle, OK?!  

Heh.

Second thing I noticed was that it wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be! Genuinely, it was almost quiet in there first thing in the morning. It was nice, because it allowed you to get your bearings before some flustered mom in a homemade "I'm here with my dwarves" Cricut shirt elbowed you in the face to get to Tiana's Bayou Adventure before the wait got too long

Actually, it really as nice without the morning crowd there. Since Disneyland is so much smaller than Disney World, I got the impression that it had a different vibe altogether, at least in the early part of the day. To me, it seemed more like a neighborhood boardwalk amusement park than THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!!!!! as I walked through and got on some of the smaller rides right away. I rode the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which was fun. I couldn't keep the skirt of my tennis dress down, so thank God for biking shorts! I walked right on It's a Small World (still creepy) and it was after that I started noticing the crowds getting a little bit heavier. I mean, I expected it, but it was a nice morning reprieve not to have to face a smothering crowd first thing.

**Stopping here to say that I know I sound snarky, but I had fun. How can you not have fun? It's Disneyland! Am I a huge fan? No, but I'm not going to be a cranky bitch about being at a theme park if I chose to be there, right? It was very cool to see the original park, and all the historic things that started the whole thing. The rides weren't exact copies of the ones in Florida, so it was fun to see the differences. All Disney parks are engineering marvels, no matter what you think about them otherwise, so if nothing else, seeing how they create such all-encompassing landscapes in such a small space was very interesting. The design differences were fun and exploring the nooks and crannies is always an experience.**

So I continued my day, getting on rides, standing in lines, slowly boiling in the heat like the proverbial frog in the saucepan.  Y'all, it got HOT. I really wasn't expecting the kind of heat I encountered, but it was nasty. Granted, I am an indoor kind of gal, and my days are spent inside of an air-conditioned office, so a lot of it is just not being used to being outdoors all day, but jeez. I legit almost fainted at one point. I don't know what it was, but I got swimmy headed and had to sit in the shade and drink water before I passed out in Galaxy's Edge. Can you imagine? Fainting, and coming to to see a stormtrooper hanging over you? No thank you please. Once I felt better, I went on to ride the Haunted Mansion ride, which is very similar to the one in Orlando, and Pirates of the Caribbean, which is really quite different! The Pirates ride is longer, I think, and is set in Louisiana at first (a swamp, at least, so I think that's right) and even though it hit some of the same notes, it was different enough to be like a new ride altogether. After that I rode a lot of stuff, ate some stuff, and looked at stuff. It was a full morning!

It was about then that I realized two things: 1) It was too damn hot to be there in the crowd that had been steadily growing the entire day. and 2) I was within walking distance to the hotel.

So I went back to sit in the AC and take a nap! Actually, I took a shower and then took a nap, because I had been sweating so badly that I couldn't deal with it. That outfit I picked wasn't cooling or moisture wicking. It was swamp ass city and I was the only inhabitant. Yuck. Also, I had a blister on one of my toes! I wore my comfy, old-lady walking shoes that never give me any problems, and I had a blister! I was glad to rest a while. I knew I'd be going back later once the sun went down a little, so I didn't feel like I was missing anything. 

You know that whole thing about overpacking? Well, it served me well. When I got up, I put on a clean outfit and headed back out. It was still hot, but much nicer than it had been earlier, so walking around wasn't as uncomfortable. However, by that point the crowds were SO bad. I mean, so bad. 

Maybe the locals know better than to come to the park in the middle of the day when it is hot, so they wait until closer to the end of the day, but it was as bad as I've ever seen it in Florida. It was so busy that I decided that I wouldn't try to do very much else because I'd be standing in line for likely hours, so I mainly just walked around and looked at things. Also, I had a reservation at a restaurant called "Blue Bayou" which was a Cajun place attached to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and I didn't want to accidentally miss it, because it was a hard reservation to get. One day, if you're good, I'll tell you all about getting reservations at the Disney Parks. It'll make your hair stand on end.

The reservation wasn't supposed to be until 9:30 PM (What is this, Spain?) but I was so ready to eat and get out of the crowds that I finally walked up to the host and asked if there was any way I could eat earlier. Thankfully, there was! Yay! The restaurant was so cool on the inside, both in temperature and in decor. It was like eating outside under a big live oak tree by a stream, and I could see the riders on the Pirates of the Caribbean boats go by. The food was phenomenal, but I expected nothing less. It was one of the fancy restaurants on the property, and they never disappoint. However, my meal was almost ruined by the family at a table nearby. I need you to understand that I'm not saying that it was almost ruined because there were kids at the table, I'm saying it was almost ruined because there were terribly behaved children at the table, and adults who didn't give a f*ck about those kid's behavior. It was fine at first, because the kids were just being loud and kids are loud, which is normal. But I looked over JUST as the little boy spit a huge mouthful of chewed food out of his mouth and onto his plate. I very nearly threw up. Then the two little girls got up and started spinning around and yelling, almost hitting the people at the table next to them. Then they stood up to eat, messily, and then proceeded to do chorus line kicks, again, almost kicking the lady at the next table. The adults were on their phones, not paying attention. It got really bad, but thankfully they finally left, and I felt like the whole room heaved a sigh of relief. 

The fireworks actually went off when I was inside of the restaurant, so I didn't see them, but that was ok. I was full, and sleepy, and ready to go back to my hotel and sleep some more. My foot was killing me by then, and it was only when I got back that not only did I have a blister on my toe, that blister had a blister underneath that as well. How does that even happen?!  It was gross, but I was too tired to care, and I fell asleep very fast!

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY. AGAIN. DAY 1

So, guess where I went! You'll never guess. Well, unless we're Facebook friends, because I posted a photo there.

I went to Disneyland!

I know.

I know.

I know.

Shut Up.

OK, so it obviously wouldn't have been my first choice of vacation destinations, BUT I had never been there before and was interested in the differences between Disney World, where I have been a lot of times, and Disneyland, where I had never been. So that's where I went.

I had the chance to get a free plane ticket because of points, so I got up at an ungodly hour and got on a plane. The first stop was Atlanta, of course. I am always going to be cursed with having to go to that airport. I can't explain why I hate it. It's a perfectly fine airport, and it's undergoing some very needed updates and remodeling, but it's a visceral hate I have for the place. My hatred is deep and it is unexplainable. The Atlanta airport is the Hattiesburg, Mississippi of airports. I will not elaborate further.

So I get there, and shocker: Delta has oversold the flight. I will never freaking understand why they do stuff like that. Like, OMG, someone might not show up and they NEVER have people on standby hoping to get on, so they should definitely sell some seats twice just to make sure they get every last dollar they can, right?  I know that's unfair, and I don't know how Delta does business, but it doesn't make sense to me. This is the sole reason I don't own an airline, you know. 

Anway.

They needed three people to volunteer to give up their seats for the flight, and although I've never done it before and since I didn't have any particular plans for the rest of the day other than getting to Anaheim, I volunteered. They gave me $800 and a seat on a later flight. I like money and I can be patient. It seemed like a fair trade. 

I got to California slightly later than originally planned and called an Uber to come and get me. I had to be bussed to a second location to be picked up, which I thought was weird, but apparently it keeps traffic at the airport down to a medium roar not to have people getting picked up their in ride shares. I would have liked to have rented a car, but 1) I had no idea what the traffic would have been like there, and 2) once I was at the hotel, I was within walking distance to Disneyland, so I didn't really need one. Except for not having the freedom to go anywhere beyond walking distance, I'm glad that I did the ride share because California traffic is awful. I only needed to go 35 miles from LAX, and it took an hour and a half. That is insane to me.

The car that picked me up was a fancy-pants Tesla, and I didn't know how to get inside. I've never been in a Tesla before, and there was just this silver thing flush to the door. Someone had to tell me how to use it, which was embarrassing. I felt like Sylvester Stallone in Demolition Man when someone had to tell him how to use the three seashells. But get in I did, and they drove me to Anaheim. The car was self-driving, so the man behind the wheel was basically decoration, but he was pleasant. I didn't realize I'd ordered a "quiet ride" until about halfway through, so there was some awkward conversation at first, and I had the feeling I was being rude by not talking later on, but that's the southern woman in me. I was created by God to hold pleasant conversations and keep people entertained, and staring out of a window of a car that was driving itself through the metro Los Angeles area without talking was weird. That car was dope, though. I want one, but I'd have to sell parts of myself on the black market to afford it, and even then, I don't think I'd rate top dollar for those parts at my age. I'll stick with my rapidly aging Volkswagen for now, I guess.

Once I was at the hotel, the man had to tell me how to get out of the car because like the outside, the inside handle didn't make sense to me. I was glad to get out so that I could stop embarrassing myself with my lack of knowledge about sentient cars.

The hotel was older, but decent, and was undergoing some remodeling, so check in was a little awkward, but not too bad. My room got upgraded for some reason, but apparently that just meant I got a set of bunk beds in the small room, and the ability walk outside and see the nightly fireworks, if I looked to the left. My one big complaint was that the hotel had outside walkways. I know that sounds petty, but really, I like my hallways to be indoors. A hotel room that leads directly outside kind of freaks me out a little. Anyone off the street could wander to my door and try to open it. That is how true crime podcasts start.

Once I was settled, I changed into my Downtown Disney outfit (again, shut up, I was going to do my damnedest to have the best time I could, and I was committed!) I had a dress with a wild, Enchanted Tiki Room bird pattern on it, and I got LOTS of compliments, thank you very much. I actually went to Trader Sam's, which was a Disney owned Tiki Bar, and had to wait an ungodly amount of time for a table but finally got to have dinner. I had some Kalua-Style Pork Nacho Fries, and they were just as delicious as they sound. I also got a Zombie cocktail, and it came in a Zombie Head Tiki Mug that I got to keep, which was very cool. I was very blurry by the time I left, and unfortunately the heat, plus the cocktail (which had ALL the rums in it, and although I love rum, it doesn't love me) made me quite ill, and I had to spend about ten minutes fighting for my life in a Downtown Disney bathroom until I could walk straight enough to leave. 

I did walk around the shops a bit, going in and out of the air conditioning, because it was really freaking hot in Anaheim. I thought it was supposed to be a dry heat, but it wasn't. I didn't realize how close we were to the coast, so all the thought of "It's a dry heat" went out the window that first night.

I finally called it and walked back to the hotel and went to bed. I would be going to the park the next day and needed my beauty sleep! 

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

 1. The other night, I woke up to find a water bug had breached our pest control line of defense and was crawling on my arm.

MY ARM. 

MY. MOTHER. EFFING. ARM.

A ruckus ensued. The bug had to be murdered and disposed of. I had to sleep with the lights on the rest of the night, and I might as well not have been sleeping at all. Every touch, every sensation, and I was flinching.

There is a place where these particular, horrible things get into my room, but I don't know where it is so that I can encase it in concrete and then have it blessed by a priest. It doesn't happen incredibly often, but it happens more than it should.

It has been raining and suddenly got stupid hot, so I get that it was just trying to get to a comfortable place, but that place should have never been my arm. I may not recover. My heebies are completely jeebied.

2. Do you remember when I said I hadn't had an oven incident since before Christmas? Well, strike that. Some corn-ribs that I put in the oven when slightly tipsy (I had other adult supervision, but not in time, apparently) leaked oil onto the bottom of the oven because I didn't have the wherewithal to put them on a baking sheet with a lip. So back to the drawing board and Easy-Off, I guess.

Don't worry, I haven't turned into a lush, it was just a miscalculation of ABV in a drink I wasn't familiar with. It made me quite sick, and I think parts of my body prolapsed in revolt. That was more than a month ago, and I'm still recovering.

3. I've been attempting to do the NY Times crossword puzzle every day. I'm not very good at it. Apparently, I don't know as many words as I thought I did! Nothing makes you feel as stupid as not knowing the capitol of a country you didn't even know existed that starts with an F and has seventeen letters! Sometimes a friend at work and I do the crossword together; she is a technical writer and she knows many words, which is humbling. Mainly I'm trying to do it so my brain doesn't turn to mush as quickly as it seems to want to.

4. Last Saturday, I went to someplace called Lexington, Alabama. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't! I drove there to attend a Dukes of Hazzard meet and greet, because there is one more signature that is needed on the lunchbox. Almost all of the people (the ones still alive at the beginning of this particular endeavor, at least) depicted on this genuine, vintage, actually-used-for-school-lunches metal lunchbox have signed it, save for one: Sonny Shroyer, the actor who played Enos Straite. You don't see him at many of these kinds of things close to us because he is 91 years old, and he is elusive. Catherine Bach was hard enough to get a hold of, but I don't think I'd ever heard that Mr. Shroyer still did events like this. He was going to be there.

I have a confession: I had a MAD crush on Enos Straite.  Some girls liked Luke, some liked Beau, but I liked Enos. I have always been partial to sweet dorks, I guess. 

Anywho, I went solely to meet Mr. Shroyer and to get that signature. Alas, it was not meant to be.  

I paid $20 for a wristband to stand for two to three hours, in the sun, heat, and humidity, in a line that NEVER moved. The only time I got to step forward was when people ahead of me either realized they were in the wrong line or got tired of waiting and left. Apparently, there were people who paid $500 for VIP passes, a theft of huge proportions when you consider the redneck-ass-backwoods-event we were attending, and I say that knowing I drove to the outer rim of civilization myself to meet a man who played a country deputy on a TV show set in rural Georgia over 50 years ago. Those VIP ticket holders had paid for the privilege of multi-day access to the special guests and special events that the day pass holders didn't get. That didn't bother me. What DID bother me is that those VIP tickets apparently didn't include a chance to get their autographs ahead of time. What it did do was give them a chance to get in the front of any line they chose, keeping other people from going inside. Also, there was no time frame for them, so whenever they showed up, they got to go first. Because of this, and because Mr. Shroyer is 91 and can't spend all day doing grip and grins, I never moved far from my spot in that line except to go to the bathroom. We all know that when I get hot, I get mean. I don't understand it, I never mean to be, but it is the case. Also, a bug got on me. Things deteriorated after that. I didn't just hate the bugs and heat; I began to hate everyone and everything. Oddly, though, that wasn't why I left. I hadn't planned on staying all day, and the time I had allotted myself expired right along with my patience. I left before I throat punched anyone, which was fortuitous. 

Sorry this story is anticlimactic, but at least I traveled to a town I'd never been to before and no one got attacked, which is always a plus. 

5. I've learned to make homemade Pop-Tarts. A friend of mine went on a diet (?) or something called Soft 75 along with his wife, and he was struggling with all the things he wasn't allowed to have, one of which was his Pop-Tart Thursday. That's a clever name for the one pack of Pop-Tarts he allowed himself a week, on Thursday. I know that pain. Even with much less stomach than I originally had, I still want to stuff it with junk sometimes. So, I told him I'd try and find a healthier option, since it was more about avoiding overly processed food than about losing weight. However, all of the 'healthier" options were still very processed. So I learned to make them with very little sugar and jam I made myself with honey! They were surprisingly tasty, if I do say so. I brought him a half dozen, and he was so happy, which made me happy! I like doing fun things for people, even if it includes taking my life in my hands and using the oven. 

None of them burned, by the way. I can't believe you were wondering about that. Geez.

6. Not much else going on anytime soon. I'm going to do a bit more traveling next month, which is nice. If it goes well, I'll tell you about it. :)  Hope you are having the best day of your life! (So far!) 

N.S.T.R.

Hello, Friends!

Just jumping on to give proof of life, again. 

My life is literally so boring at the moment that even though I've wanted to write something here, there has been nothing worth writing about!

Well, that sounds a little too bleak. My life isn't pointless, just not eventful. It's hard going from a full-on Hawaiian adventure to...normal stuff.  It is a shame I'm not filthy rich so that I can travel all the time and then write about it, isn't it?

Alas, I have to come back to reality and do normal, working-class stuff like be a receptionist, buy groceries, go to church, and do laundry. Honestly, those things are not so bad, so I'm not going to complain too much. Heehee!

Let's see: I've been cooking more lately! I'm still not great at it, but I haven't set anything on fire since Christmas! There was a cornbread incident that I don't like to talk about, but I've almost got the oven clean again. A lot of that had to burn itself off, but at least I can bake stuff without smoke coming out now!

There have been some health things, but nothing dire. I finally have a doctor that is testing for things that are good to know about instead of waiting for stuff to fall out or break first. Several tests, and a couple of new medications, but I'm a middle-aged woman, so that isn't so odd.

Anthony and I went to the Huntsville Pop Culture Expo a couple of weeks ago and that was a lot of fun! I updated my Velma costume to be a bit more warm-weather friendly, and I got a ton of compliments! It wasn't a sexy Velma, though. I was the only non-sexy Velma there. 

Will Wheaton, Anson Mount, Christoper Lloyd, and a few more fairly big names were there, but I didn't meet any of them. I would have liked to have met Christopher Lloyd, but I was scared he wouldn't be nice and I'd never be able to watch Back to the Future the same way again. I also wanted to meet Anson Mount, but he had a weird mustache that must have been for a role, and it grossed me out so much that I couldn't bring myself to get close to him.  Is that weird? I mean, I like beards, and I don't mind a Fu Manchu, but just a mustache (and a weird, handle-bar one to boot) give me the ick so bad that I don't want to get close to anyone who has one! I only got one autograph, and it was for someone else. He was a voice actor that did some cartoon work in the 80s, and since my friend couldn't make it to the Expo, I got them the autograph. We had a fun day!

Otherwise, Nothing Significant to Report! I hope whatever you're doing is great! 

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART V

 It was my birthday! It was the best birthday I've had in years.

We actually didn't do very much, because we'd chosen this day to be way more chill than the day before, and it was the last full day we had before we'd have to leave and wanted to enjoy it.

*Before I give my brief account, I know I'm forgetting stuff. We went back to that market an alarming amount of times during our stay. Steve went to the pool, and I went shopping. We ate, but not as often as we probably should have. Honestly, I don't remember which days these things happened, so just imagine those activities crammed into the cracks of all of my other stories.*

We met a cat in the morning on the back porch...ahem, I mean, the lanai. Heehee.

She was a sweet tortoise shell cat that had been caught, fixed (she had a tipped ear,) and released around the resorts. We'd seen several of them during our stay, and this was the second one to make friends with me. I think it was because I was eating cold, fried squid and shared it with her. She wanted love so bad, so I gave her lots. I named her Lilikoi, which is the Hawaiian word for passionfruit and one of the few words I could pronounce. She meowed so sadly when we left for the day. I wanted to cram her in my suitcase and take her home, but you can't even take a mango back from Hawaii, so I didn't think a cat would have made it through the agricultural check. :(

We drove down to Kona, which was the same town we went to for the luau earlier in the week, to visit the farmer's market that happened every morning. We wanted to buy fruit. I don't know why we got as much as we did because we had to leave the next day and couldn't take it with us, but it was too tempting. We got a pineapple, a cocoa bean, some bananas, a weird, scaly thing called a soursop, and a mystery orb that turned out to be a yellow passionfruit. I'd hoped that I could find something to take back to my mother and sister as a souvenir, but most of the booths hadn't opened and the ones that had were mass market stuff that I could have found anywhere else. We walked around Kona for a bit, met a very passionate man who worked for a local coffee company and seemed like he'd had a gallon or two that morning, and we got drinks from a local vendor (mine was passion fruit and I'm now addicted to them) to drink while we sat near the beach. It was a very lovely morning.

The only thing we'd actually planned to do that day, other than the dinner reservations we'd made, was visit a local beach. It wasn't one we'd seen before, and it was very popular that day. Don't be shocked, but I actually wore a swimsuit. In front of strangers. A two piece one! I know! Don't be too excited for me because it didn't fit very well. It was the first time I'd worn the bottom half and it was a shade too big, and the top was a shade too small, but except for my boobs threatening to fall out occasionally, I didn't care a bit. We found a spot to lay our blanket, and I got into the water. Dude, it was cold, but I stayed in until I could swim around. Steve stayed on the beach, and I geeked out because I was in Hawaii, swimming in the pacific, on my birthday. I got out and walked along the beach looking for shells, but I really don't think that the island where we were was good for that. I only found two intact shells the whole time we were there, but I found a few pretty broken ones. Then we lay out on the beach for a while just enjoying the day.  

After we left, Steve found a place he wanted to visit a few miles away, but I decided to stay back at the condo and take a nap. When he got back we visited the resort pool and hot tub, and it was like a scene from Cocoon. Then I realized that we are also old, and that made me sad! Haha! It was evening by that point, so we got cleaned up to go to dinner, which was, weirdly, at a Hawaiian-Cajun fusion place at the shopping center. Great food; weird combination.

While we were waiting on our dinner time, I wanted to get one particular thing for myself as a souvenir, and that was a necklace. I'd been given some birthday money from Mr. Lee, and I thought a nice piece of jewelry would be a great thing I'd use all the time, and it wouldn't gather dust, but y'all...real jewelry is effing expensive. I didn't want anything elaborate, or made of diamonds, but even the relatively simple stuff I found was WAY out of my price range. I usually just wear a simple, silver necklace with a small pendant on it, and that's all I wanted, but geez. I did finally find one, not exactly what I originally wanted, but close enough. It's a tiny, silver hibiscus flower on a chain. It's pretty rad. 

We had to go back and start organizing our stuff so that we could leave the next day and I was sad. I know how cliche this sounds, but I genuinely didn't want to leave. I know that a lot of people feel like that, and they move to Hawaii for the vibes and then realize that living in Hawaii isn't the same as vacationing there, but I literally could have abandoned everything and stayed. That sounds so dumb. There was something about being there, on that island I hadn't prepared to visit and didn't know anything about until driving around it, that has my heart now. I genuinely miss it. Not the food, not the touristy stuff, but the place.  

But leave it I must. It is the way of things.

The next morning (Sunday) we got everything packed away, snarfed an obscene of farmer's market fruit, and played with the cat for a while. Three kids came up while we were outside and I introduced them to the cat, so I know she had some playmates after we left which made me feel better about leaving her there. After checking out, we returned the rental car and sat at the first of three airports for a really long day of travel. Our first flight wasn't until that afternoon, but our check out time was in the morning, so we sat in the Kona airport for several hours before a short flight to Honolulu. From there we got on a long-ass, 8 hour, overnight flight to Atlanta. I took a sleeping pill for that one, but still managed to watch a movie, have a meal, and try not to touch the person I didn't know sitting to my left. We hadn't managed to get better seats for the long-haul flight, but that was fine. Such is life! In Atlanta, early Monday morning, we had just enough time to visit the Delta lounge before our last leg of the journey.  Steve has enough Delta miles from work travel to be a member, and he can bring a guest, so we went in and got breakfast. Out of an abundance of Fuck-It-All, I ordered a White Russian at 6:30 AM, because it kind of has coffee in it and it's on my list of cocktails to try and I didn't have to pay for it! So slightly tipsy, we went to our gate and got on the plane to Huntsville, where I promptly fell asleep again.

Although the trip was not the one I'd planned, it was the one I needed, and I had the best time. I found a new place to love, and I hope I can go back one day to visit it, and the other islands as well. 

There you go! Aloha!

BLOGGED, BUT NOT ALONG THE WAY: PART IV

Okay. All right, now, let's see. Where were we? Oh, yes. In the Pit of Despair...

Well, no, we're still on Big Island. I believe this would make it Friday, February 13th at this point!

This is the day that Steve planned. When I told him to look on the map and find places he wanted to go, I didn't expect a full itinerary, but he surprised me! I have also been reminded that when he sets a schedule, he abides by it. I can respect that, even if I'm more of a wanderer, but I will comment more on that later.

We had to leave just after 8 in the morning so that we could go to all the places that he'd found to visit on this day. Although we still weren't sure about the size of the island or how long it would take to drive around it, and the internet wasn't telling us what we needed to know in a practical way, we decided that we'd just get up, get dressed, and go and worry about timing and anything else that came up along the way. 

(Important Note: I had only had enough water to swallow a pill before we left. I accidentally left my bottle of water on the table in the condo.)

As you can see with my fine graphics skills, I have numbered the areas on the map that we visited that day in the order we visited them. We had actually planned go in the opposite direction than we actually did, because there was one other spot we wanted to see that was closer, but the things that we had on our list were things we wouldn't be able to see if it got dark, so we reversed our course.

1- That was our home base. I believe that I showed you that in the last post. That first long stretch of the drive was through a desert of some kind. Not a lot of trees that weren't small and scrubby, bright, hot sun, and lots of lava rocks were the scenery at first. Oh, and goats. So many freaking goats. There wasn't much out there as far as buildings, but we did see some kind of testing range out there. I know it was military, but not what it was for. I figure if we needed to know, there would be a sign out front telling us what they were testing. Missiles maybe? Not my business. As we drove, we saw the same kind of landscapes that we'd seen the day before on our way: dry - then high and rainy - and then bright and lush. 

We would have loved to drive up the side of Mauna Kea, the worlds largest mountain from base to top, (SUCK IT, EVEREST!) but we didn't have the right kind of rental car to get there. Apparently, you need a 4-wheel drive, and we had a convertible, so we just knew it was there and had to be satisfied with that.

As we were getting close to our first stop, we got rear-ended at a stop light. Thankfully it wasn't bad and there was no damage to either car, but it scared the crap out of everyone involved. The poor guy who hit us either skidded on the wet road, or got bumped from behind by someone who didn't bother to pull over with us, but thankfully this didn't derail our day at all. In the spirit of Aloha (I read that on a travel blog, so don't blame me for that) we all parted ways kindly. 

2- It was a little hard to find, but such a lovely drive that I didn't care. We finally found our way to the first stop, which was the Star of the Sea painted church in Pahoa. It was so beautiful. I didn't know what to expect when we got to this tiny blue church in the middle of nowhere, so it blew my mind when we walked in. The link above can tell you about it much more succinctly than I can, so please go and read about it there, but going inside was such an experience. The interior was painted in forced perspective, so it actually looks much bigger when you first walk in, but it's really very small. There was only one lady in there with her baby, so we were able to look around without being crowded. At first glance it seemed a little gaudy, but when you took in everything that it was trying to express, it was really worth the long drive out there. There was a donation box, and a basket of "trinkets" that you could choose from if you donated, so I put in some money and got a rosary and oddly, my favorite souvenir of the entire trip, a macramé bracelet with a little saint medallion on it. I have no idea who the saint is, but I've got high hopes that having him with me is a good thing. :)

3- We drove on to this stop, which was Volcano National Park. I was really shocked that Steve wanted to go here, because it didn't seem like a thing he'd enjoy at all. His dad always took him to national parks when he was a kid, and I thought that he'd had his fill, but we were there to specifically see something called a lava tube. What is a lava tube?  It is a cave with protuberances. At least, that's what the internet tells us because we didn't get to see it. There were so many people in the national park that day that we couldn't find a place to park so that we could get to the lava tube. We could have parked a bit away and walked, but it was cold and rainy, and we hadn't expected to be in that kind of weather and didn't have jackets. Plus, the road we'd have to walk was narrow and winding, and we didn't trust that we wouldn't get ran over by a tour bus. We did get to see into Kīlauea, which wasn't erupting at the time, and we got to see some Nene birds (which are fancy Hawaiian geese) and that was very cool. We were going to go see some more stuff in the park, but we couldn't find a place to park anywhere. We even got stuck in a line of traffic that wouldn't budge, because people were parking in weird places, and some angry German lady got out of our car and knocked on our window and told us we had to move because she needed to leave, but we were literally unable to go anywhere, so she had to deal with it until we managed to inch forward. 

I almost gave her the Fist of Aloha. Hateful schlampe.

There was no place in the park that we could stop and look at anything because of the parking situation, and even the welcome center was closed for remodeling, so we decided to leave. I wish we could have seen more, but it was a nightmare trying to get anywhere with all the people, so we counted it as a partial loss. We did get to see a volcano, though, so that was my silver lining! 

We drove and drove and drove to get to the next spot, but again, it was such a beautiful drive that it didn't bother me at all. We went though a lot of neighborhoods and tiny towns, and it was cool to see the kinds of houses people live in. I guess I probably make it sound like they were living in grass huts or something, but they weren't, of course. It was just much different from the houses and yards where we live. There were small, brightly painted houses with lava stones decorating the yards, and all kinds of flowers everywhere. There were orchids growing wild on the side of the road, and wild chickens. We saw macadamia nut farms, and coffee farms, and there were wide fields that led to sea cliffs, so at certain points along the way we could see the ocean. We did pass one place I wish we could have stopped, which was another black sand beach, and a famous one from what I understand, but when I pointed it out, Steve didn't stop. I didn't say specifically that I'd like to stop, but I wish I had, because by that point a bathroom and a vending machine would have been nice. It was almost 1 PM by that point and I hadn't eaten, drank, or gone to the bathroom in all that time, but we had someplace to go and we were on a mission to get there. After driving through all of that, and then more driving through one-way farm roads towards the ocean, we finally found what we were looking for.

4- We got to the parking area of the Green Sand Beach, Papakōlea. I have read about this place before, it was a bucket list place for me, and I wanted very badly to see it, but I didn't think I'd get the chance. Not just because I thought I'd never get to Hawaii, but because it's apparently not an easy place to get to even when you're there. We'd heard you could pay locals to drive you out to it in an ATV, but we didn't like the idea of that because we'd be on some else's schedule.

Charles asked us our first day if we'd be going to the green beach, and we told him we'd like to but that we'd heard it was hard to get to, but he told us that it was an easy 2.5-mile hike without many hills. Very easy to do, you see. We are not big hikers, but we have hiked further than that before with no issues. Plus, Charles said it wasn't that bad! Charles wouldn't steer us wrong, would he?

Now, before you answer that, there is something you need to know about Charles. Charles is a multi-time Iron Man Triathlete finisher. I don't know if that's the proper term, but he was a big Iron Man guy. That was one of the reasons he lives on the Big Island, because that's where they do the Hawaiian Iron Man race. Also, unless you, yourself, are an Iron Man triathlete, you cannot trust them when they say something is easy, because they spend huge amounts of time torturing themselves to train to do a race that regular humans can't do, and their idea of easy IS NOT THE SAME as that of a normal person.

We didn't consider that. 

When we got out of the car, someone walked up and asked us if we wanted to pay for a ride. It was $50 for both of us out and back, but we didn't have that much cash on us, and we also figured if Charles said the hike was easy, then we'd be fine. That is when God punished us for our hubris.

It wasn't hard at first. Sure, we were walking on old lava flows, and it was hilly and rocky, but it was fine. It was lovely scenery, blue sea, black rocks, rough surf, and very windy, but still nice. It didn't take long before the trail stopped being a trail, and we had no idea how far we actually were from our destination, and it wasn't that nice anymore. It's easy to be dramatic about it now, because obviously we lived to tell the tale, but the hike out there became long, hot, dusty, windy, and complicated. Where the ATVs drive through, it had carved gullies out of the ground that you had to figure out how to follow. If you got out of the gully, you had to climb up and down rocky wash outs, and there were so many trails that we didn't know if we were following the right ones. Every time we saw a hill, we expected to see the beach just beyond, but it was never there! Two or three times, the ATVs and trucks drove by and they asked if we wanted a ride, but Steve said no. I was not pleased, but what could we do? After a time, I decided that if I could make it there, I'd count it a win, and so I became determined that I would see that green beach, even if it was the last thing my living body saw.  Finally, and I have no idea how long it actually took because my body had ceased being able to tell the passage of time, we got there. It. Was. Freaking. Gorgeous.  Did I think we could just walk down to the beach and enjoy it? Yes. Could we? No. Because we had to scale a lava cliff before we could get down to the sand. Geez.

Before we got to the cliff, I turned and asked one of the drivers waiting nearby if they took Venmo. They did. Hallelujah.

So Steve and I, out of shape, dehydrated, hot, dusty, and a little pissed off, got to the cliff and made our way down. There is a small ladder to the first landing, and after that, the rest of the climb is between you and Jesus. Thankfully, Jesus was on our side, so we made it down safely. It was totally worth the hike. 

I wish I could have stayed there for a long time because it was one of the prettiest places I'd ever seen. It was right up there with Zion National Park in my book, and that's saying a lot. The green sand literally sparkled, the beach was in a little cove protected from the wind and civilization, and the water was deep, dark blue. If we had been alone there, it would have been perfect, but of course, we weren't. It was still like something you'd dream about. I dug around in the sand for a little bit, and looked for shells, but there weren't any that I could see, but it didn't take long for Steve to want to leave. It had taken us much longer to get out there than we'd thought, and we still had another stop to make. Honestly, as much as I loved being there, I didn't fight him about leaving because I was so tired. So we climbed back up the cliff and were assigned a truck to get into, and we waited for the other passengers so that we could leave.

The ride back was...harrowing. The man who drove us had a green truck he called The Turtle. At least I think that's what he said, because his accent was thick and I wasn't sure what he was saying. It was a very old truck, and once the other four passengers got in (we all stood in the bed, holding on to metal pipes that had been welded into a sort of frame to keep us in) he used moving straps to hold the doors of the cabin closed before setting off. I'm fairly certain that even in my most redneck of days, living on our little farm and riding in the back of the farm trucks, I have never been so close to death as we came from riding back to the parking lot in The Turtle. I had my arms and legs wrapped around the pipes, and we would go over hills violently, or tilt up almost 90 degrees very slowly, or tilt to the side so much that I just knew we'd fall over. However, the man got us back. It didn't take any less time, more or less, but it took much less energy, so we were grateful. Once we got back, Steve venmoed the money to the guy's wife, and I was so glad to be back that I gave him every last cent of cash I had on me as a tip. That was dumb, I realized later, because when we came to a place where someone was selling water, we didn't have cash for that. Good Lord. I would realize later that every time we hit a bump, my right hip bone was slamming against the pipe, so I had a nice sized bruise there and, on my elbow, after a day or so.

Thankfully our next stop was literally less than two minutes away.

5- This place was the southernmost point in the 50 states of the US, called Ka Lae, Hawaii. It was a cliff. Steve didn't get out of the car, but I did. I didn't go through all of that not to get my foot picture with the edge of that cliff, by God. I didn't stay long. 

We had a long way to drive back, and although we were going to make one more stop, we decided not to because were not only dehydrated, exhausted, and sunburned, we were now filthy from all the dust we had walked through on our way to the green beach, and all the dust that The Turtle kicked up on our way back. We weren't just filthy, we were gritty. It was not pleasant. I asked Steve to stop somewhere so that we could get something to drink, but I don't know if he was so zoned out that he wasn't paying attention, or if he wasn't seeing the gas stations and restaurants we passed in time to turn, but it was a while before he actually stopped so I could get something. There was a brief moment where I could have gladly stopped the car and beaten him to death for that, but I kept the spirit of Aloha right up until we got back. Lucky for him.

We got back to the condo, cleaned up, and FINALLY got something to eat before collapsing into bed. I don't remember anything after turning the lights off. It had been a fun, adventurous day, but damn, I was glad it was over.