Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vacation. Show all posts

Friday, September 20, 2024

The Trip or My Week X

The post begins with work and ends with work…

Technically, this post will be about last week, but since it does lapse into this current week, this is what you get! Most of my pictures from the trip were people heavy, and as the rest of my family feels the same as I do (except my Mom) about putting up pictures online, there probably won’t be very many.

On Wednesday the 11th, Mrs B and I took a leisurely flight down to the Atlanta Georgia airport. My sister and her partner picked us up and they dropped us off at my parents house where we were staying. My brother and sister-in-law were down as well and so that evening everyone went out to a nice eyetalian restaurant called Provinos. Mrs B got a sampler platter of all their fried veggies and cheeses and I went with the chicken and broccoli alfredo with fettuccini. It was gooood!

Thursday was our big “do things” day. Everybody (except my dad, and including my Mom and niece Grizzelda) piled into 2 cars and we struck out for the wilds of Tennessee. Went up to Chattanooga to an aquarium there and spent the morning going through that. It was just the right size for Grizzelda and just the right amount of people for me (ie, not a lot at all). Between me, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk, Grizzelda’s mom and my sister, we managed to keep track of Grizzelda, but it was definitely a group effort. She literally didn’t stop moving the entire time. We would get to a new room and all spread out and she’d just zoom around the room 3-4 times, taking in everything at 30second intervals.

Blue Morpho Butterfly

It was in two buildings, one for fresh water exhibits and one for salt water creatures. By the time we were done the second building I was exhausted. Thankfully, Grizzelda’s mom knows the area (she’s a wedding photographer and goes all over the place) and already had a great restaurant in mind. We made a reservation and I ordered the whiskey and onion smash burger.

I know it doesn’t look big on that plate, but that’s two quarter pound patties and so many onions that I had to scrape off about half of them. It was delicious! And so filling. Afterwards, I went back to the car and took a food fueled coma nap while the others took a walk and looked at tourist’y things. Then we did the two hour drive back to Mom and Dad’s place and collapsed for the evening.

Oh yes, on the way to the aquarium, we stopped at a gas station that Grizzelda’s mom described as the Walmart of Gas Stations. It is called Buc’ees and boy howdy, was her description spot on. We saw signs for the place 75miles away for goodness sake.

Buc’ee the Beaver. In bronze. I got a picture of him with me and Grizzelda for posterity’s sake. She’s going to just love that in about 13 years when I send her a big glossy 8×11 as a birthday present 😀

Friday we all gathered over at my sister’s place and just hung out and played games. It was lowkey and I loved every single second of having zero responsibilities. We all scattered around 2pm and went back to our separate places. My Mom, Mr and Mrs Bombfunk and Grizzelda’s mom all went to a Brave’s baseball game that evening while everyone else went to bed and slept the sleep of the exhausted.

Saturday we once again gathered at my sister’s and had homemade brunch. They have chickens and so we had scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes. Then we played games again and chilled until it was time for the Bombunks to leave for the airport so they could go back to the adult world. Once we were back at Mom and Dad’s, we packed up and headed off to bed.

Friday started off at 330am, when we had to wake up. Dad drove us to the Atlanta airport and we had a very uneventful flight home. We were back at our condo by 1pm. Spent the afternoon unpacking, doing laundry and getting used to being home again. That’s a good feeling!

Monday we had taken off just in case there were flight delays or cancellations. Since there weren’t, we had a free day. Mrs B went to visit some historical house with a friend and I sat home and pretended I was a log. Hahahaha!

Bookstooge Revealed!

And then it was back to work for the rest of this week. Sigh….

Monday, July 25, 2022

The Trip

This is going to be a text heavy, picture-lite post. Mrs B took most of the pictures while I was out in California with her and since she’s not coming back for another 2 weeks, it’ll be at least that long before I get any 😀

Thursday’s Schedule:

  • Get up at 2:45am
  • get to the airport, park the car, check in luggage, breeze through security
  • I get the “special patdown” because my blood glucose sensor and insulin pump have sensitive enough electronics that the big whole body x-ray machine destroys them.
  • Get on the plane, read for 2.5hrs, land at Midway airport.
  • Sit around for 2.5hrs, eating and reading.
  • Get on the plane, fly to Ontario California airport. 4.5hrs of MORE reading
  • pick up our luggage and have the inlaws pick us up.
  • Go to their place and take a nap.
  • Got to Medieval Times for dinner and a show. I’ve been to Medieval Times once before about 15/16 years ago when Mrs B and I were courting. It was a blast then and I had a boatload of fun this time around too. Screamed myself hoarse in support of “our” knight, the Red Knight. Who turned out to be the good guy and won it all while defeating the evil Green Knight. Good stuff!
  • Go home and sack out like the dead

Friday I remembered why I didn’t go with Mrs B to visit her family very often. I am a list oriented, goal driven kind of guy. You make plans for a day, you stick to those plans. The first problem is that nobody in that family makes plans. They all have “ideas”. And they end up doing what they want at a whim. Thankfully, I had fully put myself in vacation mode, so it didn’t bother me, but I ended up sitting at home while they did various errands they had all forgotten about. I did go grocery shopping with them and fortified myself with an arsenal of caffeine drinks. Both Mrs B and I would sack out around 8pm (11pm our time, as there’s a 3hr time zone difference) and then wake up at 2-3am. It made for some very long days. Thankfully, naps were always in order 🙂

Saturday we went to a gothic cathedral SDA church in Perris Lake. Mrs B took a bunch of pictures so I’m sure at some point they’ll show up here. I found this one online, so you at least get an idea of what it looked like. It was about an hrs drive each way and we arrived at 9:30 and didn’t leave until a bit after 1pm.

We celebrated Mrs B’s birthday once we were home and thankfully her brother was up and about (he works the night shift) so he could join the festivities too. It was a nice family affair. I had plans for the evening, but made the mistake of laying down for a power nap at 7pm and next thing I knew it was 3am on Sunday morning! 😀

Sunday was when I had to fly home. They dropped me off at the airport where I got that special pat down again and then I read and read and read. I read on the plane, I read at the layovers, I read as much as possible. There were some delays so my flight didn’t arrive until about 2am, so I chugged a monster energy drink for the drive home and booked it.

Now I have today to recover, get fully back on East Coast Time and prepare to go back to work tomorrow. See you around…

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

♪Give Me a Ticket for an Aeroplane, ♪Ain’t Got Time to Take a Fast Train♪ Remix

One Score and Four Months ago Mrs B and I headed South to take a vacation and visit my parental pods. Tomorrow we embark on another adventure Out West to the violent and dangerous hills of California to visit the other set of parental pods. Sadly, this time around I will only be able to go for an extended weekend, but Mrs B will be able to take a full 2 weeks.

There will be posts going up while I’m gone but I will be incommunicado until sometime late next Monday, or possibly Tuesday (if the airlines screw me over like they have lots of other people in the last year).

Tata.