Rebellin

I’m currently in Orlando for a conference, where I’ll have the extreme pleasure of working a booth every day I’m here. It has been a while since I’ve taken a longer flight, and let me tell you, that flight from Las Vegas to Orlando seemed extremely long, but perhaps that had to do with the horrible stench of the woman’s feet beside me. She just HAD to take off her shoes!

Anyway, my hotel is a nice resort that is supposed to be a replica of a small Italian port town. The staff all greets you in horrid Italian, and to someone that has been to Italy, this resort just comes off as hokey.

The conference I’m working requires me to wear a long sleeved shirt with long pants. IN FLORIDA IN JUNE. I am actively seeking the person that decided this dress code so that I can smack them over the head. I had to walk about 1 mile from my parking space to the convention hall today, and showed up with sweat stains all over my long sleeved shirt.

The man to woman ratio seems to be about 10:1. That would be a good thing if I was single and the men were my type. But neither is true, so it’s just something of note.

I’ll write later. Tomorrow night I’m going to a party at a bar called the Glo Lounge, where everything is lit by black lights. That just sounds too cool. The next night, a party at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. The goal is not to be hung over for my booth duty during the day.

Ciao! (Ha! Fake Italy talk there!!!)

(more…)

On a one day business trip, I found myself in the middle of a security breach at the Oakland Airport. I showed up with plenty of time before my flight, and arrived to find mass chaos at the entry to the airport. I was redirected outside and down about 1/4 mile from the normal entrance, and that was where the security line started. The airport was stuffy and hot, overpacked, and they had huge fans running that weren’t making a difference.

When I looked at the flight status screen, no departure flights had departure times listed.

Oh, that wasn’t a good feeling. But can you believe after all this mess, my plane was only 10 minutes late departing?

More details from this article below:

Oakland airport emptied after alarm triggered
Man vanishes at terminal; search turns up with no one meeting suspect’s description

Authorities evacuated boarding gates at Oakland International Airport on Thursday after a man set off a security checkpoint metal detector and vanished, an airport spokeswoman reported…

Airport authorities then searched for the man, including searching two flights that were boarding, but could find no one meeting the description, Barnes said.

“When they did not locate the individual in a few minutes, they made the decision to evacuate the boarding area,” sending passengers back to the public area of both terminals to be re-screened, Barnes said…

“A couple of thousand (passengers) were impacted today,” Barnes said. “There were very long lines” to get back through security, and “queuing was all the way out on the sidewalk areas when the checkpoints were shutdown.”

Before I had found out what was going on, I asked the woman checking my ID at security if there was something going on, and she shook her head no. I then asked, “this is normal for this airport?”, and no response. The Oakland airport is usually a nutty place, but yesterday took nutty to an all new level.

I discovered that the best way to figure out what is going on while you’re at an airport is to call the airline. It wasn’t until I called Southwest that I was told about the breach. It doesn’t take a genious to figure out that the extra police, bomb sniffing dogs, and crazy lines mean something is amiss, but airport personnel were rather mum about it.

We returned yesterday from five days in Albuquerque (better known as Albuqturkey during Thanksgiving). No time to write all the details now, but it was good. Little Miss was a lot more challenging to travel with, but once we got there, she was pretty happy. We took her to the zoo (loved the monkeys yet again, and the giraffes were definitely a favorite), on two hikes, and she got baptized in the church where I grew up.

I had wonderful pictures of all of this until my camera fell out of the camera bag in a parking lot and was subsequently run over. The camera and my $70 flash card are toast now, along with those very special pictures.

Put a bit of a bummer on the trip.

But we’re home. It’s winter here — highs in the mid 30s, and it is starting to feel like the holiday season. I’m planning on putting up the tree this weekend, making sure not to put ornaments on the bottom two feet of the tree, as Little Miss is a pro at crawling now, and is focusing on walking, which I anticipate she’ll be doing on her own by Christmas.

Anyway, more details later, and I’ll post some of the pics my mom captured.

Signed,

A sad, camera-less Momma

I’m leavin’ on a jet plane tomorrow bound for New York City. I have a conference there Monday and Tuesday, but Saturday night and all day Sunday, I’ll be chillin’ with my sister-in-law, CB, in the city that never sleeps.

But I guarantee I’ll be sleeping, because pregnant ladies have to sleep.

Expect details on my trip by Thursday… I’ve refused to take my ancient heavy laptop, as the trip is too long to deal with that dinosaur.

Last night, I began singing Frank Sinatra’s New York song to the hubby, who promptly begged me to stop. I then started whispering the lyrics, which resulted in a sharp elbow jab to my ribs.

I may not be much of a singer, but here are Frank’s timeless lyrics:

New York, New York

Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today (but it’s really tomorrow)
I want to be a part of it – New York, New York
These vagabond shoes, are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it – New York, New York

I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn’t sleep
And find I’m king of the hill – top of the heap

These little town blues, are melting away
I’ll make a brand new start of it – in old New York
If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere
It’s up to you – New York, New York

New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city, that never sleeps
And find I’m a number one, top of the list, king of the hill
A number one

These little town blues, are melting away
I’m gonna make a brand new start of it – in old new york
And if I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere

It up to you – New York, New York

I leave tomorrow for the Blog Business Summit in San Francisco. Need I say how geeked I am about this? I’m really excited! It’ll be ALL BLOG ALL THE TIME for two straight days. Woo!

And, for those of you wondering, I’m going to get ideas on how to build the Reno-Tahoe Blog, NOT this site.

Well, I’m back. Did you miss me? I spent Wednesday through Thursday of last week traveling to/from Boonville, Missouri for my grandmother’s funeral. The entire Cook side of the family gathered for the funeral, so it was great to see everyone, and we know that my grandmother would have been extremely pleased with the turn out.

Traveling to Boonville, Missouri from Reno is an all day endeavor. We left our house at 6:00 am on Wednesday morning, caught a flight from Reno to Vegas, and then had a lay over in Vegas. Then, our flight got delayed by about an hour. Why, you ask? Well, because the plane flying from San Diego to Vegas HIT A BIRD, which put a huge HOLE IN THE WING, and hence, they had to arrange for a new plane for our Las Vegas to Kansas City flight.

But really, I’m OK with that, because who wants to fly on a plane with a huge hole in the wing?! Not I!!!

JB and I traveled with my brother, Chuck, sister-in-law, Audra, and niece, Kacey. Kacey is now 9 months old, and this was her first plane ride. She did amazingly well.

Anyway, we finally arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, and rent a minivan (much to Chuck’s chagrin), and started the two hour drive East to Boonville.

“Wow, there isn’t much traffic here for rush hour on a Wednesday,” we were commenting, just as the traffic came to a screaching halt on I70.

Then, people started getting out of there cars. You know you’re going to be stuck for a while when people are milling about on the highway.

Luckily, we noticed we were right next to an on-ramp, and many of the locals were going up the on-ramp to get onto the business access road. We followed suit, and saw that a mile ahead of us, there was a huge wreck.

We later found out it was Eminem and 50 Cent’s tour bus, which had been traveling West, and veered onto the median and up onto the East bound lanes of I-70. Literally, we came within minutes of colliding with them! Here is the article to prove it!

Because of our delays, we were over an hour and a half late (we arrived at 4:30 PST, so that was about 10 hours of travel to get there) for my grandmother’s wake, but managed to say hello to everyone. It was a remarkably upbeat gathering, despite the open casket of my grandmother in the back of the room.

I don’t do well looking at dead bodies. It really creeps me out. Regardless, I went up with JB to look at her, and was instantly consumed by tears. I should have known better.

The funeral was Thurdsay, and although it was a beautiful celebration of her life, I couldn’t stop myself from crying, even when I had to get up and speak. I think I actually made a bunch of other people cry when I started crying into the microphone. It wasn’t pretty. I’m glad it’s over.

I’m also so glad that JB was able to make the trip, because I think I would have completely fallen apart without his hand to clutch to.

Thursday afternoon, our family gathered at my grandparents’ house one last time, as it is about to be put up on the market for sale. Some neighbors brought over a quad, so all of the kids and some of the adults, including JB and I, all took turns riding the quad around the property and around the pond.

After dinner, JB and I went walking on a dirt road through my grandparents’ property, which is about 12 acres right now. We were told there were ticks around, but I didn’t remember any from my childhood. Besudes, we figured we’d be safe staying on the dirt road.

First, I must tell you that my husband is deathly afraid of ticks. (Read this for his last tick encounter.) He kept thinking that things were crawling on him, and he kept sweeping off his legs. I thought the man was being paranoid.

That is, until we got back to my grandparents’ house, and I found a tick crawling up my leg. And then another on my shoe. And then JB started finding ticks in his shoes, and let me tell you, there were ticks and ticks and ticks. Luckily, none managed to dig into either of us, but it was at that point, I knew it was time to remove ourselves from the premisis before my poor hubby had a panic attack.

We returned to the hotel, stripped down, searched each other for ticks, and then jumped in the hotel swimming pool.

JB now referrs to Boonville as Tickville.

So anyhow, those are the highlights from our trip. We returned on Friday, and then had a weekend at home to catch up on laundry and house work.

Grandma, may you rest in peace.

JB had been scheduled to play with his band at the Solor Cookoff this last weekend. I decided to join him, as originally planned, in hopes that it would help take my mind off things (see previous entry).

And it did. It was an enjoyable, yet very interesting, weekend. The Solar Cookoff is basically a gathering of modern-day hippie types that are really into solar ovens. Somehow, although I’m not sure of the connection, they arrange for bands in the Reno Blues Society to play during the day on Saturday. That is how JB’s band got involved.

The cookoff was in Taylorsville, CA, which is this tiny town situated in a valley that is surrouded by beautiful Sierra mountain ranges. It was perfect weather, and truly beautiful surroundings.

We showed up Saturday afternoon, and I couldn’t believe how many people were crammed into the campground. There were at least four tents or campers on what would normally be a spot for one. We pitched our tent in an ‘open’ space, which put us about five feet on all sides from other campers. I was really thinking it would be a miserable time sleeping, but thanks to JB bringing earplugs, I slept just fine.

JB’s band did a great job, and people danced for their entire set. They even threw in a version of Sublime’s Santaria, which went over really well.

After they played, there was a pot luck. Basically, all of these people had put dishes for dinner in their solar ovens earlier in the day, and it was a display of what you could cook with a solar oven. The spread was great — casseroles, meat, pasta, etc. Someone even had what was left over of their wedding cake, which made for a great, sugary dessert.

That night, there was a concert/dance in the main building (called the Grange) in Taylorsville. The building had spring loaded floors. I didn’t think much of that until the music started. Picture this: JB had a full beer. The music starts, and everyone starts jumping up and down. I’m talking a few hundred people. It was like an earthquake, and JB’s beer started going everywhere, including down my chest. I started yelling, “chug!”, which was funny to watch him chugging in circumstances that felt a lot like an earthquake.

Anyway, we danced the night away, and the next day, after packing up camp we went to a swim hole called Indian Falls. Basically, there is a beautiful waterfall that flows into a nice swimming hole, made up from Indian Creek. There were people jumping off rocks, standing under the waterfall, and all in all having a great time. It was so beautiful in there. I’d show you pictures if I hadn’t forgotten my camera…

The people at the solar cookoff were a tad strange, but unbelievably friendly. For example, as we were setting up camp, a complete stranger came up to us and gave us a Nutty Buddy. Giving me ice cream is one way to get on my good side FAST! They were all wearing tie-dye or broomstick skirts, and I was truly entertained with two men wearing Utilikilts. I am so not kidding.

So, I feel better today. It was nice getting away from everything and being social. My grandma’s funeral is this week, so I really needed something fun to help brighten things up around here.

Just back from a 4 day trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit family and friends. It was action packed, and I ate a lot of good food. More details to come later.

Yesterday, after a mountain bike ride, we were sitting around the camp fire area enjoying lunch. My two brothers were in deep conversation, and my nephew, Jack, was trying to play soccer with me while I was seated in a lounge chair eating a sandwich (in other words, he would kick the ball to me and then beg for me to kick it back).

“Earthquake!” JB exclaimed. Everyone kept talking and doing what they had been doing.

“Earthquake!” he repeated. Still no reaction.

“Hey! We’re having an earthquake!” he said, finally interrupting my brothers’ conversation.

“How can you tell?” I asked, as I felt nothing, and the trees didn’t seem to be moving.

Then I felt it. I swear it went on for like 30 seconds. Jane, who had been in the camper napping was awaken by the shaking.

“Wow, I wonder if San Francisco just had The Big One,” someone said.

When we got home, I looked up Google News and got the scoop. We were about 60 miles outside of the epicenter. Read the article.

JB and I went camping this past weekend at Lake Davis, which is Northwest of Reno.

The theme of the weekend seemed to be, “What did Lynnette forget to pack?” We had decided to procrastinate packing until Friday after work, and while I was packing, JB was at the computer trying to determine where we were going camping.

Really, there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute.

So I ended up packing all of the equipment and food for us in a hurried 45 minutes, and then we were out the door. We drove north from Carson City into Reno, and that’s when I remembered that I had forgotten to pack pillows.

We stopped at a sporting goods store and I bought us some camping pillows.

Back on the highway, about 2 exits later, I remembered that I had forgotten to pack a pan in which to cook our breakfast.

I ran into Walmart and bought the cheapest pan I could find.

Later on, it was determined that I forgot to pack:

• A book — considering it was just the two of us camping, a good book would have been wonderful.

• My swim cap and goggles — yes, I forgot to pack these, even after I told JB last weekend, “I never go on a trip without my cap and goggles!” We were at a lake that was great for swimming, and I had to deal with opening my eyes in the lake water. (Which wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.) But, I had to listen to JB tell me the entire weekend that he never goes anywhere without his goggles as he’d put his on and go for a swim.
• Salt and pepper — our food was it’s own natural flavor.
• Coffee for JB. He later confessed that he didn’t actually NEED the coffee, but he really enjoys making it when he’s camping.

I’ve determined that we will pack for camping trips the night before we leave in the future, as that lets me have time to remember what I was about to forget. And I’ve also declared that we’re going camping for my birthday weekend, and JB is doing all of the shopping and all of the packing for that trip. So there!

Despite my forgetfullness, the trip was wonderful. We had a camp site with a lake view (despite our lack of reservations), and we slept like logs. During the day, we’d mountain bike, followed by a swim in the lake and a nap on the beach.

The food also cooked up very well, if I must say so myself. It was a weekend where we didn’t rush to do anything, and just relaxed, enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful surroundings.

So without further ado, here are a few pics from this past weekend:

This is Lake Davis.

This is the view of Lake Davis from underneath our beach umbrella. I rather like this picture, as it is a bit artistic…

And this, ladies and gents, is a self portrait, as I smooched for the camera.

JB and I spent four days in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Independance Day holiday. He had said that he couldn’t marry me without seeing my homeland. And now, he has.

We did about every touristy thing you can do in Central NM. We rode the World’s Longest Tram to the top of the Sandia Mountains and hiked around at the crest of the mountain. There are wonderful views from there. We did Santa Fe, ate tons of New Mexican food, and even hiked at Tent Rocks (pictures to come later). We also attended Albuquerque’s largest fireworks show, Freedom Fourth.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day up at Amber’s house, which is East of Albuquerque. They own a house on 12 acres, and have chickens, dogs, and two horses. Amber and her husband treated us to horseback riding that afternoon. Being the daredevil that I am, I was begging them to let me gallop with the horse. Each time I asked, I would get a strange, but cautious look. I didn’t figure it was a big deal because I had ridden numerous galloping horses before.

Well, after Amber’s husband and I went riding, JB and Amber took the two horses out. When they got back, they offered for me to go out one more time for a good run, now that the horses were tired out. I was on the stallion named Buck. (Side note: Buck is actually a mustang from Nevada, of all places.)

When I kicked Buck’s sides, he started running. We never reached a smoothe gallop, and in fact, it was really rough. And then Buck started to buck.

My feet were slipping out of the stirrups, and I was hanging onto the saddle horn with all my might. I managed to get him to stop, and looked over to Amber.

“Was that bucking?”

“Yeah. You want to do it again?”

I shook my head no. That was plenty of excitement for me!

Later that night, my parents threw an engagement party for us. We had about twenty people come over, and it was good to see everyone. They were all people that I hadn’t seen for quite a long time. JB did great, considering he didn’t know a soul there, besides Amber. The excitement of the party came when a fire truck pulled up in front of our house.

You see, my mother’s cousins’ kids (follow that?!) had decided to light a bonfire of pine needles and silly string in front of our house, unbeknownst to the adults at the party. Evidently, a neighbor called the fire department. The fire had been put out by the time the firemen showed up, and the entire driveway was wet from being hosed down.

The ironic thing is that the fire department showed up right after the kids had announced that they were going to set off fireworks, and everyone should come to the front yard. So as all 20 of us were filing into the front yard, the firetruck pulled up. Dad said a few explicatives and head-tailed it back into the house. Luckily, we had a firefighter at the party (Amber’s husband).

So Amber’s husband went up to the firemen and started chatting with them.

“Have you been setting off fireworks?” one of them asked.

“No, but we’re about to. Do you want to stay and watch?”

They all shared a chuckle and the firemen hopped in the truck and drove off. Needless to say, Amber’s husband was the hero of the party, and my Dad was ever so thankful for him when he came back outside after the coast was clear.

That night, Amber, her husband, JB and I checked out a new club in ABQ called Graham Central Station. If you live in ABQ, you totally have to check it out. They have four bars in it — country, kareoke, 80s music, and rave. We had a ball going from bar to bar, dancing the night away. I was shocked when I walked by the DJ booth at the country bar and heard my name being called.

I turned around, and the DJ was smiling at me, saying, “you don’t remember me, do you?”

I looked at him, and from out of the air, I pulled out his name and remembered that I had swam with him back in high school. Woah. And he didn’t even play the song I requested.

But I digress. As for the rest of the mini-vacation, in addition to gorging ourselves on New Mexican food (which is VERY different than Mexican food), we indulged in Mom’s creations, including cinnamon rolls, quiche, carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, and homemade ice cream. (Yes, the big DIET started again yesterday!)

We watched our family’s home movies on an old projector, and JB got to see me as a 5 year old cheerleader and swimmer, my first attempts at biking, and shots of my brothers in all of their 70s glory riding the go-carts that they built themselves.

We also had engagement portraits taken by mom’s favorite photographer, and they turned out really well. I’ll get them in a few weeks and will be sure to post them.

So now we’re back. I have four days until Sharkfest! Woo!

We finally had a fun weekend again, after two weekends were consumed by moving. JB and I ventured to Petaluma, CA this past weekend, which is in Sonoma County just 32 miles outside of San Francisco.

The city wasn’t anything like I expected. I thought it similar to the other Bay Area cities I had frequented, but it was totally the opposite. It is a little country town that is incredibly charming, historical, and easy going. Petaluma one of the oldest cities in California, and it is one of those places where time just seems to pass more slowly. The area is famous for their eggs, and JB and I have decided that we’re going back for their annual Egg Day festival in April.

But I digress. We we ate a lot of eggs at some incredible little breakfast nooks, went to a museum (many pictures of eggs), enjoyed the music of numerous accordian players, I did the polka with the cutest little old man with a handle bar mustache, we went to a cheese factory, drove through winding country roads, and just all around relaxed. It was just what the doctor ordered. Small town, slow, relaxed living.

We stayed with an old friend of JB’s, who got married 2 months ago. He and his wife were a very fun and warm couple, who felt like instant friends when I met them. On Saturday, we went to see a Giants game in Oakland, and wow, was it a great game. We had seats that were four rows behind home base, and the game went into a very exciting extra inning.

On the way home yesterday, we stopped by to see my brother and his family. It was so fun to see both of my nephews and to relax out on the patio with my brother and sister-in-law. My 3 month old nephew, Luke, is growing like crazy, and Jack the 3 year old is a never-ending source of energy. JB and I had fun spinning Jack in circles, then setting him down in the grass and telling him to run. Tehe.

Now my sights are set on the long weekend ahead. It promises to be just as enjoyable.

This past weekend, JB and I ventured to San Diego for a short vacation. His band was playing in the Rock and Roll Marathon on Sunday, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

We traveled to San Diego on Saturday. We both had duffel bags, and managed to get to the airport a bit late. When I was loading the plane, the flight attendant yanked my bag from me and told me I was going to have to check it. I was OK with that until I saw her letting JB take his duffel bag on with him, and it was the same size as mine!

Needless to say, by the time we arrived in San Diego, my bag was Missing in Action. I was told it would arrive in a few hours.

We checked into the hotel, and then headed to the beach. I got to sit on the beach while JB went and froliced in the ocean. Those of you that know me well, know that I love the water. And let me tell you, I was not happy with the fact that my swimsuit was in the bag that was missing.

That night, we had dinner on the beach with the other members of his band. On the way to dinner, I had called the airline and was told that my bag was found and would be arriving at the hotel around 7:00 pm.

I was happy with that. But when we returned from dinner at 10:30, my bag was still missing.

Sunday morning, JB and his band went to set up for their gig at 5:15 am, while I tried to eek out a few more hours of sleep. I called the airline at 6:30 am, and was told that my bag had been delivered to the hotel the previous night at 10:30. So I called the front desk, that hadn’t seen my bag. So I called the airline back, and they said, yes, your bag was delivered to the Holiday Inn on the (name of wrong street) to Penny Cook.

That’s right, they delivered my bag to the wrong hotel and the wrong person.

“Oh, your room isn’t under Penny Cook?” They asked.

That was pretty incredulous. Luckily, the other hotel was nearby, so I told them I would go pick up the darn bag. Well, because of the marathon, the street in front of my hotel was closed, meaning I had to walk about a half mile to the other hotel to get my bag.

Grrrr. They are getting one angry letter from me this week!

But after my bag was returned to me, the vacation became quite enjoyable. I went to watch JB’s band play… Basically, they had bands along the marathon route, and JB’s band was at mile 13. I had been asked to bring two coffees and water with me.

I later discovered that the closest I could park to their stage was about a 30 minute walk, so I got to make that walk with full hot coffees in each hand and a gallon of water in my backpack. So along with the runners, I definitely felt like I was getting a workout.

Of course, by the time I arrived at their stage, they had plenty of water that had been delivered by race officials, and it was ‘too hot’ to be drinking coffee.

As for the marathon, I really admire anyone that can run that distance. I’ve done numerous 5Ks, and I honestly think that is about as far as I would really like to run. The people that really amazed me were the three people that ran the marathon barefoot. Is that not insane?!

After they finished playing, we went back to the hotel and took a nap. JB and I then went and played in the ocean a bit. He thought I was quite the dork for wearing my swim goggles, but I was the one snickering when he later started complaining of his eyes stinging! That night, we went to see the concert for the marathon runners, which was the band Live. The rest of the band happened to be really avid Live fans, and had arrived at the ampitheater when the doors opened at 5:30 pm. JB and I strolled in at 8:30, and discovered that they had saved us seats — front and center, baby!

After the concert, JB and I went to meet up with my cousin, John. John is 9 months older than me, and is currently in grad school in San Diego. He lives in a house 5 blocks from the beach with 3 roommates (and former fraternity brothers). John and his roommates took us to his favorite bar, which was a little hole in the wall. We played the world’s most pathetic game of pool (which was abandoned because we kept scratching), the guys played darts, and I had a blast catching up with my cousin, whom I hadn’t seen in 7 years.

On Monday, we did a bit of boogie boarding, and then had an incredible dinner at a fancy restaurant with a view of the beach. That night, we headed to the Gas Lamp district to check out a few bars, and discovered quite a party scene on a Monday night. Do people in San Diego really work?!

Tuesday, we met up with a friend of JB’s from college for lunch, and then rented beach cruisers. I felt like I was truly immersing myself in the local culture as we cruised up and down the boardwalk. We parked the bikes, rode a cute wooden rollercoaster, and then did a bit of body surfing and napping on the beach.

So, now I’m back, a bit tanned (and parts of me a bit burned), happy, and tired… I seem to notice this pattern with our vacations!

The food theme for this vacation was Mexican. We ate fish tacos, fish burritos, shrimp burritos, lobster enchiladas — if it was Mexican with seafood, we ate it! And yum! I’m sure I’ll have to do a bit of extra time at the gym this week to undo the damage from all of that great food.

There you have the download on our beach vacation. Now, let me see if I remember how to do this thing they call ‘work’.

I’m back from an absolutely wonderful 3 day weekend… Here it is in a nutshell:

Friday night:
We went out for Indian food, and I swear it was like being on a hidden camera show. It started off with the waiter coming over to take our order, and looking anywhere but at us, and when he left, we were wondering what we were really going to get since he wasn’t paying attention. That’s when they delivered the wrong kind of beer to JB. And then they delivered a plate that we didn’t order, and as we sat there looking at it, another waiter came over and yanked the plate away from us. About 10 minutes later, they delivered the SAME wrong plate to us again. At that point, we determined that we should probably just take what we could get. It went on and on like that, and if the food wasn’t so darn good, we probably wouldn’t want to go back there again.

After dinner, we checked out the newest country bar in town, Rock-N-Rodeo. The premise is that they play both Rock and Country. We watched the line dancers, which are endless entertainment for us, and then we did quite a bit of two-stepping and swing dancing. Mucho fun.

Saturday/Sunday/Monday:
We got up on Saturday for a quick run before catching a plane to Vegas. Once in Vegas, we drove to Lake Mead, with all of our camping equipment in a suitcase. We were doing boat-in camping with some of JB’s friends. We had an entire beach to ourselves, and enjoyed lots of fun in the sun (and the water).

There was an island about 400 yards from our campsite, so I swam there and back about four times over the course of the weekend. I am training for the Alcatraz Shark Fest, if I haven’t mentioned it before… JB joined me for two of the island excursions, and we claimed the island as our own, writing “LC+JB” in the sand. (Corny, I know!)

JB’s friends had rented a water trampoline, which served up a lot of fun. After swimming out and back from our island, JB and I hopped onto the trampoline (OK, it was actually rather challenging to get up on it, so I should say we moaned and groaned as we pulled ourselves up onto it), and began inventing our own games on it. There was King of the Hill (who can kick the other person off first), and then we’d spin the trampoline by trying to run in circles on it, and last but not least, one person would lay down while the other would bounce around, which threw the other person around quite a bit.

Because it was so bright and I didn’t have a place to put them, I left my swim cap and goggles on my head while we were playing on the trampoline. JB’s friend later said that it was really quite a scene to see me jumping on the trampoline, giggling and wearing my cap and goggles. Hey, I might have looked goofy, but I was having a blast.

At night, there were ghost stories around the camp fire, s’mores, and illegal fireworks (provided by the teenage boys in our group).

We returned on Monday to four very attention starved animals, and one very hot house. After a nap, we took the dogs out for a nice walk at sunset, then came back to my place to cook up some delicious garlic burgers. Yum.

So that was the holiday weekend. I think I brought back half of the sand from the beach we were at, plus a plethora of little spiders, but it was all worth it.