(no subject)
I'm back in Cali! I got back Wednesday and have been unpacking and organizing my room for the past two days.
The trip went a little differently than we expected. We left my grandparent's in PA on Thursday morning, drove through Ohio and stayed in Indianapolis overnight. Friday, we made it to western Illinois and stayed at my other grandparent's house in Oquawka, IL. They had these two yippy little dogs that were actually kinda cute, although to nervous and loud. I'd never seen them before because I only see my Grandma Stroh and Grandpa Bill every few years. They're getting old and I want to make it out there more often. It was so great to see them.
Saturday morning, we left Illinois and made our way into Iowa. My dad was driving and I was sleeping because we were up pretty early. I woke up to hear my dad. "Uh-oh. Kelsey, it looks like we may have a problem." I noticed that the car was slowing down and wondered why. We were on a straight road stretching way off into the distance. Then, my dad pulled to the side out of the way of faster traffic and the car continued to gradually slow. It rolled to a stop and dad tried accelerating. No luck. So there we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but fields to our left and right, and a long road we couldn't drive down. We got a tow truck, were taken to the nearest town (Winterset). Of course, this was Saturday, so nobody was really at the shop. Fortunately, the people of winterset are nice folks and the one (yeah, one) mechanic in town came down to take a look at the car. Turns out the timing belt had gone.
So for 2 days we were carless in the middle of Iowa. My dad and I met a farmer who offered to take us to dinner with he and his wife that night. Sunday, he even drove us around town. Oddly enough, we broke down in Madison County. I'd just read The Bridges of Madison County this summer and he took us around to see Roseman Bridge. That was actually really cool. Winterset is also the birthplace of John Wayne so went to his old home too. My dad was really excited about that. We didn't expect 'ol Lou (the mechanic) to get around to fixing the car until Monday afternoon but Monday morning, my dad got a call from him. He'd gone in Sunday evening and fixed it! My dad says out little debacle renewed some of his faith in humanity. Everyone had been so nice and so helpful. Although we had to speed up on our trip after that instead of going at a leisurely pace like we'd planned, the car breaking down turned out to be not all bad.
After we left Winterset, we drove through Nebraska and into Colorado to Denver. I drove that day, 10 hours straight (well, not including br breaks). We stopped just outside of Denver at my cousin Eric's house up in the mountains. it was beautiful. he had two of the most affectionate cats in the world. But the house was dusty and the air was so different than I was used to that my allergies killed me the entire time. Tuesday morning we left Eric's and drove into Utah to my cousin Leianne's. She lives in one of the bigger towns there, Richfield. Not that it's very bif though! We had dinner with her and her husband, then scooted on outta there, headed for Vegas! I drove through this tiny bit of Arizona on the way. It was dark so I couldn't see the surroundings much. My dad pointed out that window and when I took a good look, I realized we were driving between these humongous mountains! The moon was out, very bright, and the mountains looked snowcapped, the way it shone on them. The were so huge I felt like they were going to fall in on me. But they were beautiful. it's funny to think how drastically different they'd look in the daytime.
We got to Vegas around 11:30pm (I love driving and gaining an hour when we cross time zones!), and went to see the Strip. It was like an oversized carnival! Then we crashed at a Hampton Inn (dad was concerned about cheaper motels in Vegas) which was the nicest hotel ever! I slept so well. In the morning, my dad took me to Excalibur and we did a little gambling. I don't really see the fun in it tho. I pulled the lever a few times, lost, and just felt bad. How can people sit there for hours? But, I got kicked off the floor anyway cuz I wasn't 21. We thought the legal age was 18 cuz i have friends who gamble in Charleston all the time. After we wasted a few bucks and that happened, we left and continued on our journey. We got on campus around 4 and started unloading. I got all my other stuff I'd kept at a friend's nearby and after last night, am mostly set up in kmy new room.
Sadly, I have a different roommate. She's a friend but I have yet to decide if it's gonna work out. we're very different. She's messy, I'm clean; she brings people over a lot, I like my room to be my room, not my party place. We have a lot of different habits. We'll have to compromise on a lot of things. Unfortunately, she's not that great at that. Hopefully, things will go smoothly this year.
I had a ridiculous second night in my room. I'd planned to finish setting things up, do some laundry, take a shower and go to bed a little early because I had an early night ahead of me. But, life got in the way. I was coming back from putting a second load in the washer and ran into my friends Mike and Hector. They wanted to check out my room. When I tried to un.lock the door, though, it didn't work. We have key cards like hotels but we also use 4 digit pins with them to open our dorm rooms. But my card, or the lock, wasn't working properly. We had to run around campus to about 3 different places (all this in my pajamas!) over the course of almost 2 hours before maintenance was finally called. The lock machine had died. It wasn't even replaced until this afternoon. Fortunately, I got in my room because the 1st maint. guy did this nifty thing with a couple of pieces of metal slipped under the door to open it.
Tonight's the first night that I can go out and saty out late if i want, because I have no specific obligations or plans for tomorrow. It's my dad's last day so we're gonna hang out, get a few things. I still need a printer and to return the extra bookshelf we got due to it's defective leg. Other than that, I have 2 days to relax and party before classes start! And then, I'm officially in my second year of college! That's still so surprising to me...
The trip went a little differently than we expected. We left my grandparent's in PA on Thursday morning, drove through Ohio and stayed in Indianapolis overnight. Friday, we made it to western Illinois and stayed at my other grandparent's house in Oquawka, IL. They had these two yippy little dogs that were actually kinda cute, although to nervous and loud. I'd never seen them before because I only see my Grandma Stroh and Grandpa Bill every few years. They're getting old and I want to make it out there more often. It was so great to see them.
Saturday morning, we left Illinois and made our way into Iowa. My dad was driving and I was sleeping because we were up pretty early. I woke up to hear my dad. "Uh-oh. Kelsey, it looks like we may have a problem." I noticed that the car was slowing down and wondered why. We were on a straight road stretching way off into the distance. Then, my dad pulled to the side out of the way of faster traffic and the car continued to gradually slow. It rolled to a stop and dad tried accelerating. No luck. So there we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but fields to our left and right, and a long road we couldn't drive down. We got a tow truck, were taken to the nearest town (Winterset). Of course, this was Saturday, so nobody was really at the shop. Fortunately, the people of winterset are nice folks and the one (yeah, one) mechanic in town came down to take a look at the car. Turns out the timing belt had gone.
So for 2 days we were carless in the middle of Iowa. My dad and I met a farmer who offered to take us to dinner with he and his wife that night. Sunday, he even drove us around town. Oddly enough, we broke down in Madison County. I'd just read The Bridges of Madison County this summer and he took us around to see Roseman Bridge. That was actually really cool. Winterset is also the birthplace of John Wayne so went to his old home too. My dad was really excited about that. We didn't expect 'ol Lou (the mechanic) to get around to fixing the car until Monday afternoon but Monday morning, my dad got a call from him. He'd gone in Sunday evening and fixed it! My dad says out little debacle renewed some of his faith in humanity. Everyone had been so nice and so helpful. Although we had to speed up on our trip after that instead of going at a leisurely pace like we'd planned, the car breaking down turned out to be not all bad.
After we left Winterset, we drove through Nebraska and into Colorado to Denver. I drove that day, 10 hours straight (well, not including br breaks). We stopped just outside of Denver at my cousin Eric's house up in the mountains. it was beautiful. he had two of the most affectionate cats in the world. But the house was dusty and the air was so different than I was used to that my allergies killed me the entire time. Tuesday morning we left Eric's and drove into Utah to my cousin Leianne's. She lives in one of the bigger towns there, Richfield. Not that it's very bif though! We had dinner with her and her husband, then scooted on outta there, headed for Vegas! I drove through this tiny bit of Arizona on the way. It was dark so I couldn't see the surroundings much. My dad pointed out that window and when I took a good look, I realized we were driving between these humongous mountains! The moon was out, very bright, and the mountains looked snowcapped, the way it shone on them. The were so huge I felt like they were going to fall in on me. But they were beautiful. it's funny to think how drastically different they'd look in the daytime.
We got to Vegas around 11:30pm (I love driving and gaining an hour when we cross time zones!), and went to see the Strip. It was like an oversized carnival! Then we crashed at a Hampton Inn (dad was concerned about cheaper motels in Vegas) which was the nicest hotel ever! I slept so well. In the morning, my dad took me to Excalibur and we did a little gambling. I don't really see the fun in it tho. I pulled the lever a few times, lost, and just felt bad. How can people sit there for hours? But, I got kicked off the floor anyway cuz I wasn't 21. We thought the legal age was 18 cuz i have friends who gamble in Charleston all the time. After we wasted a few bucks and that happened, we left and continued on our journey. We got on campus around 4 and started unloading. I got all my other stuff I'd kept at a friend's nearby and after last night, am mostly set up in kmy new room.
Sadly, I have a different roommate. She's a friend but I have yet to decide if it's gonna work out. we're very different. She's messy, I'm clean; she brings people over a lot, I like my room to be my room, not my party place. We have a lot of different habits. We'll have to compromise on a lot of things. Unfortunately, she's not that great at that. Hopefully, things will go smoothly this year.
I had a ridiculous second night in my room. I'd planned to finish setting things up, do some laundry, take a shower and go to bed a little early because I had an early night ahead of me. But, life got in the way. I was coming back from putting a second load in the washer and ran into my friends Mike and Hector. They wanted to check out my room. When I tried to un.lock the door, though, it didn't work. We have key cards like hotels but we also use 4 digit pins with them to open our dorm rooms. But my card, or the lock, wasn't working properly. We had to run around campus to about 3 different places (all this in my pajamas!) over the course of almost 2 hours before maintenance was finally called. The lock machine had died. It wasn't even replaced until this afternoon. Fortunately, I got in my room because the 1st maint. guy did this nifty thing with a couple of pieces of metal slipped under the door to open it.
Tonight's the first night that I can go out and saty out late if i want, because I have no specific obligations or plans for tomorrow. It's my dad's last day so we're gonna hang out, get a few things. I still need a printer and to return the extra bookshelf we got due to it's defective leg. Other than that, I have 2 days to relax and party before classes start! And then, I'm officially in my second year of college! That's still so surprising to me...