Vacation? What's That?
I went on vacation!
Okay. So, it wasn’t really a vacation. It was basically my 5-year-old daughter and I travelling the 2 hours from St George, Utah to Las Vegas Nevada to sit in an airport for like 3 hours. Then we boarded our plane to SeaTac, which is a 2-hour flight, landed in Seattle, then proceeded to wait at baggage claim for a good 45 minutes before we could begin our week trying to visit every family member and friend we possibly could within a 7 day time frame.
I would like to start off by saying that I hate the damp. I love the fact that I live somewhere that is mostly dry, and has a low humidity throughout most of the year. It rained Every. Single. Day. I saw the blue sky maybe once while we were there. Ariel played in a puddle that almost flooded into her rainboots, it was so deep. It makes my, already thick, hair thicker. It makes my skin sticky. And I’m pretty sure I started to mold a few hours after arriving. But the sounds of the frogs all loving their lives at night was pretty spectacular.
We make it to Seattle, without any sort of problems. While we are waiting at baggage claim, my sister ran in to grab Ariel and her booster seat and off to the car they went. I was not exaggerating when I said it took 45 minutes at baggage claim. I know they do a great job, because it’s their job, moving luggage from the plane. But I was a very weary traveler, surviving off a ton of coffee and maybe 3 hours of sleep. I kept to myself, but I was exhausted.
Once I had the luggage, I ran out to the car (hi, mom), and threw myself in. My sister, damn her, had promised me a glorious pizza pocket. Now, if you don’t know what a gas station pizza pocket is, then I feel awful for you. No, they are not the same as hot pockets. Their quality is lower, but they are so damn good that you don’t know what you did to deserve such amazingness to be thrusted into your mouth. This wonderful pizza pocket she promised me? SHE ATE IT. HOW COULD SHE.
And we went about our visit. Stopped to see my grandma and great-grandparents on the way back to my sisters where we were staying. Then spent most of that day just hanging out before heading to the local Mexican restaurant for karaoke that night. In going out, I realized just how much the town just hasn’t changed. It’s the same people at the same bars bitching about the same problems. Buildings are losing their gleam; the landscape is decaying. But the people? They’re exactly the same. I can’t even begin to describe how offended one drunk woman got when I said “cash me ousside Yelm, how bow dah.” She was basically ready to fight me (insert laughcrying emoji here). But it really seemed to prove my point. Some of the people are just so incredibly content living in their own misery, because negative feedback is still some sort of feedback.
I didn’t have much time to get out and see friends, as I was mainly there to see my great-grandparents (who are suffering from dementia), and my paternal aunt (who is battling an aggressive cancer). But we got some family pictures, we got pictures taken of my daughter and my niece. And my sister and I managed to finally go and spontaneously get our tattoos. We went for the big dipper and little dipper. If you’re thinking about getting into the tattoo game, this guy made $120 (plus tip) for about 20 minutes of work on the both of us.
My mom and my sister live together, so they fought a lot. But I guess that’s really to be expected as they kind of have clashing personalities. We did end up having a good time at Chuck E. Cheese’s for a few hours, and their pizza is literally the same from my childhood. I went to the casino with my besssttt friend Jamie (who is co-writer on this blog and does more work than I do), managed to lose $200, decided to play another $60, then ended up winning back most of it and walking out only $40 short, including dinner.
We had been busy basically the entire time we were there, and by the end of the week I was ready to go home. Our flight left around 2pm, and we were fortunate enough to get to the airport before the ticket counter for our airline actually opened. I checked us in on the kiosk they had, but I still had the suitcase that we needed to check. And of course, I had to pee. It was impossible to find a bathroom on that side of the TSA checkpoint, so I ended up waiting. For once, it seemed that TSA at SeaTac actually had their shit slightly together, as it didn’t take us hours to get through! Only about 15 minutes. Then we were off to sweet bladder relief and some lunch. We have some really good friends that we ended up following from Washington State down to Utah when we moved. They were visiting Washington at the same time we were, because all the kids were on spring break. Our flights were literally just 30 minutes apart, so we met up to go to Sub Pop and then get some lunch. As it came Ariel’s and my time to board, we went to go wait for our zone to be called. Just as they were calling the zone ahead of ours, she looks up at me with those sweet doe eyes and said, “mommy, I have to poop.” I mean, what better timing could she have had.
I really didn’t want to miss the flight. I wanted to get home to my dog, my cat, and my guinea pig. And my bed. And the dryness. Oh. And I suppose my husband ;]. I asked her how bad it was, and she couldn’t really give me an answer, so I did the mean parent thing and made her wait. Spoiler alert, she survived. Once we were at altitude after takeoff, I got her into the bathroom and she didn’t even have to poop. Just pee a little. But hey, such is the mom life, amirite? We hit a ton of turbulence outside of Las Vegas, but managed to arrive alive without the plane crashing into the side of a mountain, so that was nice. (I really hate flying). We got our bags from baggage claim after getting off the plane, and we only waited about 10 minutes, which was even better. Once our friends got their baggage, we went to go meet up with our ride. Our friends managed to borrow this Dodge 5500 van (or something like that) from their work and the thing is just huuggeee. Great gas mileage, but so huge. And surprisingly comfortable. We’ve nicknamed it the “PligRig” since we live so close to Hildale and Colorado City. The final stretch was to make the 2 hour drive up I-15 back to St George.
Here's the thing. I love my family. I miss them a lot, especially living so far away. But this was my second time going back up to Washington to visit, the first time was for 2 weeks. This time was only 1 week, and it still felt too long. Washington just isn’t the place for me, I can’t really see myself being happy there without being severely medicated the way I was before we moved. If you’ve done the same, you might understand what I’m talking about. If you’re thinking about doing it, you’ll never know until you try! I think that from now on, we are just going to have to stick with family and friends coming down here to visit, or just meeting up for a couple of nights in Las Vegas. For me, flying is a huge deal. It always sends me into some sort of inner panic, I always end up crying on takeoff, it’s just hard on me. Not to mention the weather. It was in the 40s when we left Washington, and in the 80s when we arrived in Nevada. I couldn’t have asked for a better homecoming than that.
