In August of this year, my husband and I had been married for a year and half. I still hadn't met any of his family except for his father. They all live in California and we didn't have the money to take a trip out there. We wanted to go last Christmastime during his Holiday stand-down but plane tickets are ridiculously pricey. So we've been saving and in September, we finally took a trip out there.
Of course, whenever I fly, I run into flight delays. Our flight out of Norfolk was delayed so bad that the plane was still in Texas at the time it was supposed to leave Norfolk. We thought we would miss our connecting flight but that plane also had a delay. It was delayed by about an hour and then once we were all boarded, they found electronic issues that needed attention. After two hours of sitting on the plane, we were finally on our way to California.
It was great meeting my husband's family. His grandmother is a gem. She is a three-time cancer survivor and 80 years old! She let us stay in her spare room on her gorgeous farm. So many fruit trees, I loved it! I tried persimmon for the first time (I had never heard of it before). I also got to try out a Washlet Toto, which is as closest to a bidet as I'll probably ever get. I was scared to try it out at first. It's actually quite nice and wouldn't mind getting one myself if I ever own my own home.
During the first week, the hubby and I did some sight seeing at Whiskeytown Lake, Burney Falls, Lassen Volcanic National Park, and other places around Redding. We also scored a free annual National Parks pass.
Active duty military should know that they can get one for free! The sights were just amazing!
On the trail going down to the bottom of the falls, we were following a deer and two fawn. We spent so much time at the falls that by the time we got to the Volcanic Nat'l Park it was getting close to sunset and we didn't get to walk any trails. We did stop at the stinky sulfur works...because men are interested in things that produce stinky gas?
For our second week, we headed south to Morro Bay. Sadly, this part of our journey was not very fun. We made it down to Los Banos from Redding and got a hotel room. The next morning I woke up with a stiff neck, a whirring sound in my left ear, a bit of vertigo, and a big fat sinus headache. With all the driving my husband had to do and being warn out from the daily activities of our first week, we decided to stay another night. When I woke up the next morning, I felt a million times worse. The vertigo was so bad it was making me nauseous.
TMI WARNING! I do not vomit if I can help it because it goes up my nose/into my sinuses and it burns. I do breathing exercises to keep it down and I can successfully go years without vomiting (unless given vicodin but I know now to instruct doctors to never give me that). This was too much to keep down though. It came up with a violent burp every time. TMI? I warned you! I didn't have a lot in me so what came up was yellow and what I thought was a bunch of sinus fluid from over the night. Between 7 and 9am I vomited the same stuff four times total. Same yellow stuff, yet my stomach, aside from sipping water afterwards, was empty. It burned too, so at this point I'm wondering if it was stomach acid and from what I've read online, could have been bile? Anyway, we checked out and just a few miles down the road I threw up again (I brought a black plastic bag just in case). We had a couple hours to go so I pretty much passed out the whole way. When I woke up we were about an hour out and I vomit again. It wasn't getting any better. I felt no relief after I threw up each time. As soon as we got to Morro Bay we said a quick hello to Lanny, my husband's friend/second father figure and then we were off to Urgent Care. I was told I had some kind of infection and was given antibiotics, a shot for the nausea and a prescription of the same shot just in case the nausea came back. Boy did that shot ever make me drowsy on top of already feeling tired from the sinus pressure. We filled my prescriptions and I almost fell asleep standing up while we waited.
A friend of Lanny's let us stay in their guest apartment, cute little place. The nausea stopped and I slept for a very long time. I still felt sick and tired so we didn't do much sight-seeing. We did go out one day that I felt better. I got to see some of the houses Eric's father owns and we walked around San Luis Obispo a bit. We saw Bubblegum Alley (it's disgusting) and ate at Eric's favorite restaurant. He had some turkish coffee, which he was raving about ever since he finished boot camp in 2010. I tried some baklava and creme brulee. I also got some gorgeous pictures of Morro Rock. As my husband would say, "Three stacks and a rock, yo."
During our delays on the way out to Cali, a friend had mentioned to wait in the USO lounge. Wish we had done it on the way out, but we definitely took advantage of it on the way back. It was so nice. That's definitely where I'll be waiting during future (inevitable) delays!
We had hired a pet sitter for our two week vacation. Sadly, the kittens were scared of the sitter and never came out while she was here. They hide in the cupboards or the back of the closet whenever someone knocks on the door. They're so scared of strangers. I paid her extra to come twice a day occasionally because she lived close but I doubt she came twice at any time. The litter was definitely not scooped to my satisfaction. She hadn't used any of the cat litter I left for her. With three cats, you need to scoop every day or it gets stinky. She didn't clean up all the litter that accumulated around the box like I had included in our contract and when we returned home, the bottoms were lined with clumps of urine because she didn't do a thorough job.
I had to scrape the heavy piss clumps off the bottom of the boxes and wash them out completely. It was so heavy and was killing my back. The hubby had previously noted how painful it was for me to bend over to scoop every day for three cats, two of which are pooping and peeing machines. All the piss and shit for one day weighs down a full garbage bag to the point that I can't even take it outside to the dumpster without dragging it. Even when we just had one cat before we were married, the hubby noticed how bending down to scoop strained my back. He mentioned there should be some kind of catbox that washes the litter and flushes it. He did a google search and found the
CatGenie. It was really expensive and I always said we didn't need it. Well, after coming home from our trip, that's the first thing I wanted! Eric was on board and ordered it right away. A review of that is in the works!
