Adventures we share in 2016

7:41pm

I’m back again! We had the best time on our trip, as per usual! There were so many fun adventures!

I don’t think I gave that many details about it, did I? I’ll have to go back and check [I so miss the search feature from OD, btw!]. We flew into Chicago on Thursday [the 4th]. That day will have to be a story all on its own. Seriously, I’ve never had so many mis-adventures on a trip before. I thought for sure we were going to miss our flight, but we made it by minutes. It all works out the way it’s supposed to, doesn’t it?

So we flew into Chicago and spent the next two days hanging out with our friends and shopping. I was looking for a dress to Y’s wedding next month but I wasn’t able to find anything. Major bummer. [I’ve also done some online shopping but haven’t found anything there either.]
We ended up leaving on our road trip on Sunday morning. Dave opted out of going with us, which also sucked, but I kind of figured that would happen. He’s not really the adventure type and they had a lot of stuff going on at home with family. It was just us three girls, but it turned out to be really great! We traveled through 5 states in 4 days! Left Wisconsin, hit Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and back into Wisconsin. All but Wisconsin were new to us so we get to check those off the bucketlist! We are now at 24/50. The leftovers are almost all on the East Coast with a couple in the south and 3 out this way. The East Coast ones would be so easy to get through. We were going to hit a ton of them with our business trip to Baltimore, but that was cancelled. Maybe next year we’ll shoot for a trip to the falls and hit a bunch of those in the area. They are so much easier to get through than trying to travel out here. I mean it takes an entire days drive just to get out of Cali. ha.

Anyway. I’ll have to put more detail into this at some point. There wasn’t a whole lot going on. Mom and Dora spent the entire time gabbing and laughing. I navigated from the backseat, stared out the window, and contemplated life. Also, I took about 2,000 pictures so that’ll be a project all on its own. I’m trying to get through as many as possible by tomorrow so I can send out for prints. They’re running their 99c sale right now so it’ll be nice to do it quickly. I usually work pretty well under pressure and then I wouldn’t have to worry about it at all. Since my normal routine consists of taking pictures and then not going through them for several months. heh. This should work out better.

Mount Rushmore was amazing, but bittersweet. It hurt my heart to hear the story of those presidents. How they tried so hard to make this country great. Then to consider the way our country is now. These two clowns that somehow got their party’s nomination. That this country is going to have to choose from two no-good people and then compare them to the greats that started it all. I don’t talk politics often, mostly because it hurts my heart the way it all seems to be falling apart. I don’t care what you believe, you have to agree that this is a sh*t show…

/end rant

We made the mistake [in reality we didn’t have that many options since we were tied down by ticket prices, etc] of going to the mountain on the same weekend as the big Sturgis motorcycle rally! Who knew!? Funny enough we’d just watched a super old episode of cops the other day where they were at the rally. So I knew all about what was going on from that. Also I’d glanced at something on a website at some point during my research, but thought it was only for the weekend. We didn’t get there until Monday night, but it was still crazy. I think it must have just been starting for the entire week. We were super lucky to get a room in the area. It was packed everywhere! The guy said it was a slow year with only 2 million motorcycles in town. ha! The room we tried to get was nearly 300 so, by chance, we went to a hotel that D had wanted to stay at years ago. They said there was nothing left. Mom did her usual chatty schmoozing and the guy ended up being from about an hour away from here. He mysteriously found a free room [one of two left apparently] and tried to give it to her for $150, but then lowered it to $100! The wonderful people skills of my mother that I will never possess! I don’t know how she does it. I wish I had that power.

Now, the room was nothing to write home about but it was a room with a bed. We were going to be in town late for the night show at Rushmore, so we would have had to hit the road after 10pm and search for something on the road. That would have been insane to try to accomplish. So we take what we can get! Later someone mentioned that rooms were going for up to $800! We were so lucky!

Other than all of that, there was a lot of sitting in the car. I took most of my pictures out the window as we drove. From sunflower fields to corn stalks and hay bales. Also, sitting in that backseat had me contemplating all things. And because the flirt was one of the last people I saw before we left, it mostly had to do with him. I jumped from wanting to dive into it, to it not being a possibility at all, then back again.

It’s so hard to really make any decisions on it. Obviously I don’t know nearly enough about him, or the situation, to honestly make any decisions but I can’t even seem to narrow it down. We have an appointment set up with him tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll know more after that.

I went ahead and did what he asked today. I called him “just to say hi.” hah. We got home from our trip on Friday, but then we left again yesterday to the casino for Mom’s birthday. On our way back into town today we stopped by the office and I gave him a call. We were talking about it on the way in and Mom had asked whether her or I would call. I said it didn’t matter to me, but maybe it would to him since he was the one that told her to have me call.

She’s clearly interested/confused/hesitant about his relationship with his baby momma. I mentioned he had a kid, right? I feel like I haven’t but maybe some time ago I did. Because there is a kid involved here which plays a huge role in everything. And we aren’t sure what the situation is between the two of them anymore. They’re obviously raising a kid together, but I don’t know if there is still some sort of romantic relationship going on. So she mentioned that she was curious about it all, but we know nothing. Oh and we joked about how he’s good at dishing things out, but can’t take them.

Which turned out to be proven yet again when I called. He’d mentioned that I should call just to say hi, right? So I tried his cell, but he didn’t answer. I got his house number off his voicemail and called that. I was in that semi-nervous state when he answered.
F: Hello
Me: Flirt?
F: Yes.
M: Hi. It’s Rose.
F: Hi.
M: I was just calling to say hi.
…long pause…

Oh I could hear him squirming under the weight of the words. haha! He clearly did not know what to say! I calmly waited, a smirk spreading across my face, and let him stew just long enough. Then I laughed and said that I was just kidding; I was calling to remind him of our meeting tomorrow. ha! It was so good! =]
I went on to remind him that he needed some paperwork. Some of the stuff he brought in wasn’t his. I mentioned this, he was shocked and asked who it belonged to. Although I knew, I didn’t say her name, just that I didn’t know who it was. He said all on his own that it was probably hers and that he’d check to see if she had his. We confirmed times and then I said I’d see him tomorrow and hung up.

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. I’ll play the game for now. Knowing that it’s fun, and flattering, and that I will be honest about only doing a friend thing for now. It’s just nice to see where it goes. To go with the flow, or what not. I’m not in these situations very often. But I will also be hesitant and cautious. I don’t need to get wrapped up in another one of these situations. I’m going to go back to the quiet, walls up, kind of life for now.

Also, I’m still on Wisconsin time so I’m going to go get ready for bed soon. We have to be at the office at 10am and will probably stay there to work on classes until our next meeting that afternoon. I’ll update after, I’m sure. ;)

rose.
8:48pm