Yep, I'm on vacation!
I am going to keep this short. Explanation to follow...
Well, I made it here to Arizona safe and sound. Today was my first full day of vacation. Yesterday was devoted to travel - we flew from Boston to Cleveland (where it was 35 freakin degrees - boy was I glad we weren't staying in Cleveland!) then from Cleveland to Phoenix (where I sat next to my two football-player-sized cousins in coach... yep...). Then we drove from Phoenix down through Tucson to my aunt Alyce's house in Patagonia, AZ. Our hotel is here as well, a little hole in the wall kind of place called The Stage Stop Inn (Google it yourself if you want to check it out, since I don't have the link - again, explanation below). Right now I'm in the hotel room I am sharing with my parents, and they are already asleep. It is only 10:35 PM local time although I find it interesting to see it is 1:35 AM on the East Coast.
Today we spent at the Patagonia Fall Festival which is basically a really big craft fair. I got some souvenirs and gifts as well as a fun henna tattoo on my hand. Then we had a cookout at Alyce's and sat around by the fire and looked at the stars... I could even see the Milky Way with my naked, non-glasses eyes.
So anyway, here is the explanation I kept promising you. I'm connected to the Internet in a wicked old-school way - via modem on America Online!! Sorry, it's the best I could do! I hooked up my computer to the hotel room's phone line. And it connected at a paltry 16.8 KBPS... speeds I haven't seen since circa 1997, haha. LiveJournal.com seriously took about five minutes to load. And to top it all off, because my parents purchased a "Bring Your Own Access" plan for AOL, a little window popped up saying I could only get 2 hours of free dial-up time. I've already used at least a half hour. And that was just to sign on and get to LJ. How ... archaic.
Anyway, I am really enjoying Arizona so far. It's nothing like MA at all. The land is so brown and flat, and the highway was stick-straight, and there are mountains seemingly appearing to pop up randomly out of nowhere. Patagonia itself sits between two such mountains (one of which I swear looks "Bryced"). I've been taking tons of pictures, which I had hoped to post here for your viewing pleasure, but I guess that'll have to wait until I'm back home, a week from today.
So here's hoping this post goes through. Come to think of it I will copy-and-paste it into Notepad just in case. You never know...
Well, I made it here to Arizona safe and sound. Today was my first full day of vacation. Yesterday was devoted to travel - we flew from Boston to Cleveland (where it was 35 freakin degrees - boy was I glad we weren't staying in Cleveland!) then from Cleveland to Phoenix (where I sat next to my two football-player-sized cousins in coach... yep...). Then we drove from Phoenix down through Tucson to my aunt Alyce's house in Patagonia, AZ. Our hotel is here as well, a little hole in the wall kind of place called The Stage Stop Inn (Google it yourself if you want to check it out, since I don't have the link - again, explanation below). Right now I'm in the hotel room I am sharing with my parents, and they are already asleep. It is only 10:35 PM local time although I find it interesting to see it is 1:35 AM on the East Coast.
Today we spent at the Patagonia Fall Festival which is basically a really big craft fair. I got some souvenirs and gifts as well as a fun henna tattoo on my hand. Then we had a cookout at Alyce's and sat around by the fire and looked at the stars... I could even see the Milky Way with my naked, non-glasses eyes.
So anyway, here is the explanation I kept promising you. I'm connected to the Internet in a wicked old-school way - via modem on America Online!! Sorry, it's the best I could do! I hooked up my computer to the hotel room's phone line. And it connected at a paltry 16.8 KBPS... speeds I haven't seen since circa 1997, haha. LiveJournal.com seriously took about five minutes to load. And to top it all off, because my parents purchased a "Bring Your Own Access" plan for AOL, a little window popped up saying I could only get 2 hours of free dial-up time. I've already used at least a half hour. And that was just to sign on and get to LJ. How ... archaic.
Anyway, I am really enjoying Arizona so far. It's nothing like MA at all. The land is so brown and flat, and the highway was stick-straight, and there are mountains seemingly appearing to pop up randomly out of nowhere. Patagonia itself sits between two such mountains (one of which I swear looks "Bryced"). I've been taking tons of pictures, which I had hoped to post here for your viewing pleasure, but I guess that'll have to wait until I'm back home, a week from today.
So here's hoping this post goes through. Come to think of it I will copy-and-paste it into Notepad just in case. You never know...