(no subject)
So, I know that I just got back from a trip and that my last several posts were long rambling descriptions of that trip....
...but by the way, I just got back from another trip! I will try to go into more detail later, but the short and sweet story is this: Melody is working for the summer the YMCA of the Rockies in Colorado, and so we (Mama, Papa, Travis, and me) piled into the car and drove up to visit her! In a perfect world it would have been more than a week and a half after my last trip, but there wasn't a date set for this trip when I planned my SF trip (...which I planned mostly by picking a date at random), and these things happened. For about two seconds I considered not going to Colorado so that I could work, but it just would not have done.
So, we spent two days driving to the far side of Colorado, then spent two days (three nights) at the YMCA of the Rockies, exploring Estes Park (very much a tourist town, but really enjoyable to visit) and admiring the scenery (guys, my heart craves mountains. I love Texas out of a deep seated sense of familial loyalty, but I don't live here because I love the climate. If I could move my family and my friends to Colorado or to the West Coast or to Georgia or to anywhere in the UK, I would be out of here like a shot). We also went rafting! Not white water rafting, though--black water rafting, because we were right by some of the areas that were burning a few weeks ago and the rain had washed a lot of ash and debris into the river. Despite out best efforts we never actually turned the raft over (although at one point it was a VERY close call), and we were woefully uncoordinated and probably a trial to our guide, but it was a lot of fun! Pictures to come.
Then we spent two days driving home. The Honda Odyssey, by the way, is a very comfortable car to road trip in--I had plenty of room to get comfy, we listened to audiobooks (Frankenstein, because Travis needed to read it for school, and Carpe Jugulum, because it is one of the best Discworld novels), we had enough car chargers that I didn't have to worry about running out of cell phone battery, and enough cell phone coverage all along the interstate that I could touch base with the internet whenever I felt like it, and on the long stretches of straight highway I didn't have any problems with car sickness, so I was able to do a lot of knitting and even read a little (in between audiobooks).
The only real problem with the trip was that both of my parents snore. And by snore I mean that separately they each sound like a construction zone and that together they sound like the destruction of worlds. We're talking about loud, penetrating, sawing noises--and they don't snore for a bit and then eventually roll over. No. Once my parents fall asleep, they don't move. And they will snore all night. Without stopping.
Spending the night in the same room with my parents means that unless I fall asleep first--which I must have miraculously managed to do on the first two nights--I do not sleep at all. And as a rule I have a really difficult time falling asleep, even when I'm exhausted, and even when I'm at home in my own bed. When I'm in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable bed, in a room with four other people and their breathing and their snuffling and their moving around and their snoring, sleep is even more elusive. Which is how, on the night before we had to get up at 5:30 to go rafting, I was in the bathroom of our YMCA lodge room, wide awake and crying because I was so freaking tired and I couldn't sleep and everything was bad. I spent the whole night lying awake and occasionally venting my feelings by tweeting about my desire to lovingly smother my entire family.
So now I'm home, and more than anything else I am excited about sleeping in my own room, alone. I'm going to go in there and lie down and no one will be snoring. Until I fall asleep, because, full disclosure, I snore too.
...but by the way, I just got back from another trip! I will try to go into more detail later, but the short and sweet story is this: Melody is working for the summer the YMCA of the Rockies in Colorado, and so we (Mama, Papa, Travis, and me) piled into the car and drove up to visit her! In a perfect world it would have been more than a week and a half after my last trip, but there wasn't a date set for this trip when I planned my SF trip (...which I planned mostly by picking a date at random), and these things happened. For about two seconds I considered not going to Colorado so that I could work, but it just would not have done.
So, we spent two days driving to the far side of Colorado, then spent two days (three nights) at the YMCA of the Rockies, exploring Estes Park (very much a tourist town, but really enjoyable to visit) and admiring the scenery (guys, my heart craves mountains. I love Texas out of a deep seated sense of familial loyalty, but I don't live here because I love the climate. If I could move my family and my friends to Colorado or to the West Coast or to Georgia or to anywhere in the UK, I would be out of here like a shot). We also went rafting! Not white water rafting, though--black water rafting, because we were right by some of the areas that were burning a few weeks ago and the rain had washed a lot of ash and debris into the river. Despite out best efforts we never actually turned the raft over (although at one point it was a VERY close call), and we were woefully uncoordinated and probably a trial to our guide, but it was a lot of fun! Pictures to come.
Then we spent two days driving home. The Honda Odyssey, by the way, is a very comfortable car to road trip in--I had plenty of room to get comfy, we listened to audiobooks (Frankenstein, because Travis needed to read it for school, and Carpe Jugulum, because it is one of the best Discworld novels), we had enough car chargers that I didn't have to worry about running out of cell phone battery, and enough cell phone coverage all along the interstate that I could touch base with the internet whenever I felt like it, and on the long stretches of straight highway I didn't have any problems with car sickness, so I was able to do a lot of knitting and even read a little (in between audiobooks).
The only real problem with the trip was that both of my parents snore. And by snore I mean that separately they each sound like a construction zone and that together they sound like the destruction of worlds. We're talking about loud, penetrating, sawing noises--and they don't snore for a bit and then eventually roll over. No. Once my parents fall asleep, they don't move. And they will snore all night. Without stopping.
Spending the night in the same room with my parents means that unless I fall asleep first--which I must have miraculously managed to do on the first two nights--I do not sleep at all. And as a rule I have a really difficult time falling asleep, even when I'm exhausted, and even when I'm at home in my own bed. When I'm in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable bed, in a room with four other people and their breathing and their snuffling and their moving around and their snoring, sleep is even more elusive. Which is how, on the night before we had to get up at 5:30 to go rafting, I was in the bathroom of our YMCA lodge room, wide awake and crying because I was so freaking tired and I couldn't sleep and everything was bad. I spent the whole night lying awake and occasionally venting my feelings by tweeting about my desire to lovingly smother my entire family.
So now I'm home, and more than anything else I am excited about sleeping in my own room, alone. I'm going to go in there and lie down and no one will be snoring. Until I fall asleep, because, full disclosure, I snore too.