Back from Oregon
So at long last I’m back. I drove to Oregon to visit a girlfriend.
The last couple weeks have been a real blur of flurried activity. It all started Solstice weekend when I spent a wonderful day and night at Schoolhouse Beach. Following that I was dealing with an intense time at work, wrapping up month and quarter end accounting reports for my logistics department. The reports are pretty boring, but the high drama really kicks in when I’m simultaneously shipping 700 displays out the door AND trying to complete tedious, detail oriented reports by a certain deadline. Suffice it to say it requires a cool head and high stamina, only one of which I readily posses. What can I say, I’m passionate about everything in my life. I have to say though I’ve gotten much better at toning down my type A work ethic. I have my priorities straight. Which is why I decided to take some vacation time last week.
I left Tuesday after work. I managed to get out of work early, go home to finish packing, get my bunnies together for the sitter and drop them off. I was experienced serious ‘Mom leaving the baby for the first time’ syndrome, but I knew I was leaving them in good hands so I let go of it.
I was finally out of the state by midnight, and the stress, lack of sleep and late hour was finally catching up with me. My place to my friend’s place is roughly 9 hours by car. I resolutely downed my last Red Bull and pressed on, but by 2:30am my vision was playing bad tricks on me and I was exhausted to the point that I was afraid of getting in a wreck. I pulled over at a truck stop in Chemault, grabbed a pair of socks, a sweatshirt and a blanket and passed out asleep immediately.
I woke at 4:30 bleary-eyed but somewhat refreshed. I went to the ladies room where I marveled at how red my eyes were, grabbed some coffee, tanked up and headed off again.
There really is something magical about that hour of the morning. I’ve never been a morning person, but it’s really amazing to be on a two lane country road in the high desert region of central Oregon, with the mist and the coniferous trees and sage brush, the sky a pale cerulean and the sun rising as a fiery orange orb. The air crisp and cold. Everything feels virginal, new, fresh. The earth awakes from its sleep as the sun stretches up over us.
By 5:30am I was pulling into her driveway and way the heck over the magical sunrise. I was all about falling onto the nearest horizontal surface.
Wednesday was pretty much a wash of a day. I got up after 5 hours sleep and stumbled through the day with that polluted, hung-over ache in my entire body. I will never drive all night like that again. To add to my misery it was about 97 degrees with 80% humidity. That thick, soupy atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re slogging through mud. We did end up going to an awesome beer league softball game with some friends. But I couldn’t get back to bed soon enough.
The next day I woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Nothing too exciting happened. We watched some hilarious-yet-arousing gay porn. We went to go see “The Happening”. I saw the trailer for the new X-Files movie and stood screaming like a complete maniac. Fortunately, there wasn’t a single other soul in the theatre to witness my loss of mental and physical control.
Friday we went to the local Independence Day parade. It was a gorgeous day…upper 70’s, sunny, with a nice cool-ish breeze. Later we went to see the fireworks display off of a small hill known as a butte. Every year it’s a twisted local tradition for folks there (and yes I mean “folks”) to cheer wildly for the butte to catch fire. I’ve never seen it happen, but finally it did, and it was an inferno. A raging, humongous inferno. We were watching from a few miles away and it was the biggest fire I’ve seen in person. Within 3 minutes, it was out. Apparently most of the fire dept was on the butte waiting for it to happen.
On the way home we saw another fire, about a block from my friend’s house. The entire roof was on fire from a bottle rocket. We walked over to investigate and it was out by the time we got there. Everyone from sexy firemen to the local news crew was there.
Saturday we spent some time at a local airfield watching my friend’s brother fly radio-controlled airplanes. They did a cute simulated bomb drop by attaching Dixie cups to the wings of their airplanes, inserting a golf ball, and then taking off and doing a roll over the “drop site”. It was pretty cool to watch.
After that we headed up to Smith Rock to hike around a bit. Smith Rock is a famous area popular with hiking and rock climbing lovers. It was gorgeous, just absolutely breathtaking there.
Sunday I drove home and finally, at 10pm that night I was in my own bed, my bunnies hopping around excitedly and all of us glad to be home.
So that was what I did on summer vacation. Well, the first one of the season anyway. *heh*
The last couple weeks have been a real blur of flurried activity. It all started Solstice weekend when I spent a wonderful day and night at Schoolhouse Beach. Following that I was dealing with an intense time at work, wrapping up month and quarter end accounting reports for my logistics department. The reports are pretty boring, but the high drama really kicks in when I’m simultaneously shipping 700 displays out the door AND trying to complete tedious, detail oriented reports by a certain deadline. Suffice it to say it requires a cool head and high stamina, only one of which I readily posses. What can I say, I’m passionate about everything in my life. I have to say though I’ve gotten much better at toning down my type A work ethic. I have my priorities straight. Which is why I decided to take some vacation time last week.
I left Tuesday after work. I managed to get out of work early, go home to finish packing, get my bunnies together for the sitter and drop them off. I was experienced serious ‘Mom leaving the baby for the first time’ syndrome, but I knew I was leaving them in good hands so I let go of it.
I was finally out of the state by midnight, and the stress, lack of sleep and late hour was finally catching up with me. My place to my friend’s place is roughly 9 hours by car. I resolutely downed my last Red Bull and pressed on, but by 2:30am my vision was playing bad tricks on me and I was exhausted to the point that I was afraid of getting in a wreck. I pulled over at a truck stop in Chemault, grabbed a pair of socks, a sweatshirt and a blanket and passed out asleep immediately.
I woke at 4:30 bleary-eyed but somewhat refreshed. I went to the ladies room where I marveled at how red my eyes were, grabbed some coffee, tanked up and headed off again.
There really is something magical about that hour of the morning. I’ve never been a morning person, but it’s really amazing to be on a two lane country road in the high desert region of central Oregon, with the mist and the coniferous trees and sage brush, the sky a pale cerulean and the sun rising as a fiery orange orb. The air crisp and cold. Everything feels virginal, new, fresh. The earth awakes from its sleep as the sun stretches up over us.
By 5:30am I was pulling into her driveway and way the heck over the magical sunrise. I was all about falling onto the nearest horizontal surface.
Wednesday was pretty much a wash of a day. I got up after 5 hours sleep and stumbled through the day with that polluted, hung-over ache in my entire body. I will never drive all night like that again. To add to my misery it was about 97 degrees with 80% humidity. That thick, soupy atmosphere that makes you feel like you’re slogging through mud. We did end up going to an awesome beer league softball game with some friends. But I couldn’t get back to bed soon enough.
The next day I woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Nothing too exciting happened. We watched some hilarious-yet-arousing gay porn. We went to go see “The Happening”. I saw the trailer for the new X-Files movie and stood screaming like a complete maniac. Fortunately, there wasn’t a single other soul in the theatre to witness my loss of mental and physical control.
Friday we went to the local Independence Day parade. It was a gorgeous day…upper 70’s, sunny, with a nice cool-ish breeze. Later we went to see the fireworks display off of a small hill known as a butte. Every year it’s a twisted local tradition for folks there (and yes I mean “folks”) to cheer wildly for the butte to catch fire. I’ve never seen it happen, but finally it did, and it was an inferno. A raging, humongous inferno. We were watching from a few miles away and it was the biggest fire I’ve seen in person. Within 3 minutes, it was out. Apparently most of the fire dept was on the butte waiting for it to happen.
On the way home we saw another fire, about a block from my friend’s house. The entire roof was on fire from a bottle rocket. We walked over to investigate and it was out by the time we got there. Everyone from sexy firemen to the local news crew was there.
Saturday we spent some time at a local airfield watching my friend’s brother fly radio-controlled airplanes. They did a cute simulated bomb drop by attaching Dixie cups to the wings of their airplanes, inserting a golf ball, and then taking off and doing a roll over the “drop site”. It was pretty cool to watch.
After that we headed up to Smith Rock to hike around a bit. Smith Rock is a famous area popular with hiking and rock climbing lovers. It was gorgeous, just absolutely breathtaking there.
Sunday I drove home and finally, at 10pm that night I was in my own bed, my bunnies hopping around excitedly and all of us glad to be home.
So that was what I did on summer vacation. Well, the first one of the season anyway. *heh*