Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

This has been a long vacation, and I am totally ready to go home and sleep in my own bed that conforms to me. Everything hurts from the waist down, and this is despite riding on a scooter and not walking all day long every day. I'm badly sunburned on my arms despite there only being one day (yesterday) that was actually hot enough to take my sweatshirt off for a couple of hours. My face is burned, too, despite wearing an Indiana Jones style hat almost all the time. My hair has bleached a bit, at least the part not covered by the hat, so now it is a lighter brownish auburn gold on the bottom 10 inches, darker brownish auburn from the top to the nape, and with silver-grey at the center of my bangs and at my temples. I haven't colored in a long time, but maybe it's time after this.

Despite chronic pain it was a great week. I saw Amy on Tuesday from about 10:30 to 7 and then yesterday Chris's cousin Bobby came from Los Angeles to spend the day at the parks with us. The kids had a blast with him. It's been a couple of years since we've seen him. He was a lot more relaxed and funny then he is at family gatherings. We saw the World of Colors show last night and it was even better than Fantasmic. I thought at first it was going to be a little lame, but it turned right around and totally surprised me. It was worth buying the $15 picnic packs for the reserved viewing. Not that they were any good, but we just considered it the price of the reserved viewing. For reserved seating it would have cost $40 per person, though it would have been far better food.

This is our last day at the park and I decided to just stay in the condo. I might go over this evening for the fireworks, but I honestly don't think it is probably worth it for that. I can go up onto the roof of the condo and watch them from there, though. I'll have to decide if being up 14 stories is worth it. I'm not exactly afraid of heights, but I don't particularly like them, either.

It is nice having the condo to myself, though. If my laptop were working right it would be even better. It is under a service plan, so if I have to take it in, it won't cost me anything. I am on Chris's computer because the mouse in mine stopped working. I am hoping to get it working again soon as it is a devil to do anything online without it. I may write if I can get into my Word program without use of the mouse. I used to know how to do things without use of a mouse. The page down and arrow keys and the control functions are all working, so hopefully I can make Word work. Because I totally want to get started on the next chapter of The Watchmaker's Daughter. The slight block I had on it before coming on vacation has gone, so I am eager to get back to it.

...and tomorrow:

I am hoping to get one more chapter of Leap of Faith finished before we go on vacation Sunday, but I don't know.  It's only sitting at 1325 words and chapters are usually between 4400 and 5000 words.  But I would like to end the current cliffhanger before my surgery, because I may not feel like writing at all in the weeks that follow it.

For our vacation we are starting off at Great Wolf Lodge for a night and then going for a swing around the Olympic Peninsula ending in Seattle at Virginia Mason for my surgery next Friday.  I don't know how much I can do at the lodge.  There's only so many stairs I can climb, waterslides or no waterslides.  So I may go back to the room and write when I get tired out.

I may write in the car for some of it, also.  The part between Bellingham and Seattle, anyway.  I've seen that so many times I've got it memorized and except during tulip season it's pretty much the same year round (only dryer at the moment).  I am really looking forward to seeing the rain forest.  It is the only temperate rain forest in the world.  I am hoping we can see one of the places that is super mossy.  I love those big hanging, deep green blankets of moss you only find deep in the woods.  We will also be touring a naval submarine that has been made into a museum.  I really hope that is a good knee day, otherwise climbing down the ladder is going to be nasty.  I will do it though for a submarine tour.  The knee has actually been very good lately so I am hoping it continues to do so.

We will also be touring the capitol building in Olympia.  I have very vague memories of it from my childhood.  Basically I remember a ginormous chandelier and marble floors.  I love official buildings from the time period this was built in.  They all look so splendid and solid and real, with fantastic greek or roman detailing.  I'm a bit of a building buff.  And we will be driving up to Hurricane Ridge because it is supposed to have a magnificent view.  I don't know why it's called that though, as we don't get hurricane's in this part of the country.  We had a tornado touch down once in the last 20 years that I recall and all it did was take the roof off one barn.  We get moderate earthquakes, and Mt. Saint Helens blows from time to time, but not hurricanes.

I will try to answer comments before I go.  At least we will have WiFi in all the hotels we are staying at.  I always feel a bit guilty if I don't get to answering the comments on fic.

I managed to do ten laps at the pool today.  That's three more than my best before going on vacation.  I, er...didn't do anything else though.  No Cybex, no bike, no rowing machine, no treadmill.  I really need to make that appointment with a trainer.  My own ability to push myself in the case of exercise appears to be very, very finite.  I feel good though, from the exercise I did do and I managed to swim all ten laps without stopping which is a huge amount of progress, too, because before vacation I paused for a couple minutes in the middle of lap four when all I did was seven laps.  Baby steps.

I got LoF back from both betas so I'll make the corrections and post that after supper.  I made salmon in foil packets in the crockpot.  It's supposed to take 3 hours on low.  We'll see.  Also making corn on the cob (microwaved) that we bought at this farm stand in Mary Hill.  We stopped purely for the sign.  Well, and for the ice, but everything looked so good.


We also got some huckleberry jam there so we are having that on homemade buttermilk biscuits as well as some fresh kohlrabi from Mom's garden.  Yummy.

Just thought I'd share my favorite weird photo from the trip.  This was just at a little pull off gift shop area called The Buried A-Frame near the base of Mt. St. Helen"s highway.   We were in Bigfoot Country.  I'm not quite sure how tall it was.  That's my son (the back of him anyway) for scale.  He's four feet seven inches tall.

( Cut for Size )

Grand Coulee Dam was awesome.  Awesome, awesome, awesome, AWESOME!  You know, in the true sense of the word and not the overused valley girl speak.  It inspires AWE.  Oh, my gosh, they aren't kidding when they say it's the biggest dam in North America.  It's amazing.  12 million cubic yards of concrete.  The vertigo from looking straight down over the spillway though is...yikes.  I'll have pictures later when we get home.  It's been an amazing trip so far.  We're having a great family vacation and every time we come across windmills we all tilt sideways and go "Tilt," very loudly.  Considering the number of windmill farms in Eastern Washington this is rather too often to seem like it should be as funny as it actually is.  There is a great level of maturity in the car.  We drove through a place yesterday in the Cacades called Loup Loup and every once in a while one of us will just say "Loup Loup," in a high pitched voice and it'll make a round through the car and we will all laugh like crazy.  It should not be this funny.  We are making memories for our kids.  They will remember tilting at windmills and Loup Loup long after Chris and I are gone, I think.

Dry Falls is three and a half miles long.  I may have underestimated it's impressiveness just a little bit when I refered to it as a big cliff face before we left on vacation.  I've got so many photos.  Again with major vertigo looking down, though.

We're at the Dalles in Oregon right now in a hotel overlooking the Dalles Dam, which is also fairly impressive, just on a smaller scale.  It's all lit up at night and the view from our balcony is amazing.  I guess there are something like 28 dams on the Columbia River.  So far we've seen five, I think.

*yawns*  Off to Mary Hill tomorrow to see the Stonehenge replica.  Apparently it's a full scale replica of what Stongehenge originally looked like and not what it looks like now.  Which is pretty amazing according to the post card I saw at one of the gift shops we stopped at.  *yawns again*  Night.

We leave on Monday for our vacation.  Did you know that there is a life size replica of Stonehenge in Washington state?  (I wonder if this was where Stonehenge Apocalyspe was filmed?)  We are going there.  It was made by a man named Sam Hill from which the expression, "Where the Sam Hill...?" is derived.  Hmm...  It also has gardens and art museums.  They told us on the phone that we could expect to spend anywhere from 4 hours to several months seeing things there.  They are infinitely helpful at the visitor's center.  And there is a cafe.  Fortunately there is also a Trader Joe's nearby so I can make sandwiches myself with food that won't make T sick.
 
We are also going to Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, the biggest dam in America (Hoover is the tallest, not the biggest). Also to Dry Falls, the biggest non-working waterfall (as in the dry part) in the U.S.  Or Washington State.  Or all of North America.  I'm not clear.  It's big though, which seems to be a theme.  And apparently calling it a dry waterfall is more important sounding than a big cliff face.  And we will see Mt. St. Helen's, the active volcano, because we like putting our lives in our hands, okay?  Something to do with history and making the trip educational for the kids.  I don't know, I wasn't paying attention.  I switched off my teacher brain halfway through June.  This is a reasonable response to homeschooling for two years straight. *nods*

We will also be dropping over into Oregon for an overnight in The Dalles.  And to do some clothing shopping for school since Oregon has no sales tax and the kids think they want to go to public school in the fall and will need more than two pairs of sweat pants and one pair of jeans each apparently.  And nice shirts.  And maybe I will find the new, round, George Foreman grill in red that makes waffles, pancakes, pizza, and quesadillas along with what it is supposed to make (meat and veg without adding fat or oil).  Because that is a totally practical reason to spend 100 non sales taxed dollars.  At least I don't want the square one that you can make lasagna and muffins in.  That would be impractical.  And doesn't make pizza or waffles.

We are not doing these things in this order.  We are making a circle...er oblong type thing.  Chris does maps and planning.  I...read a lot and type on my laptop and pretend to care about the scenery.  And drive when I have to.  But I think I will like it anyway.  Especially the laser show at Coulee.  The car trip itself might not be too bad if I don't get car sick and barf.  Which is why I tend to read or type.  So I don't barf.  Will be packing a big bowl with a lid and a couple of gallon size Ziplocs just in case.

I will try to answer my comments on ch. 23 of Leap of Faith before I go.  I'm not sure what the WiFi situation is at the hotels we are staying at.  I told Chris nothing primitive.  I wanted hot tubs and swimming pools and free WiFi.  That may have translated to hot tubs and swimming pools and kitchens in the suites so that we can cook things so we won't poison our poor allergic boy with evil restaurant food he can't handle.  I agree that kitchens have priority over WiFi and so do hot tubs.  Swimming pools are questionable over WiFi, but not kitchens.

Tomorrow is packing and one last trip to the athletic club before we go.  The hotels are supposed to have gyms, but who knows how tired we will be after traipsing around all day?  We picked up the rental vehicle today so we don't have to worry about that.  We can just pack it up tomorrow.  Why does it seem like it was easier to go to Canada than to tour my home state?  I miss visiting Victoria and going over to the island on the ferry.  *insert grumble about border restrictions here*  Need to get the special driver's licenses and kiddie ID's so we can go there next summer.

So anyway, back from Disneyland as of late Saturday night and it took more time to recover than I expected.  ( And she goes on and on... )

We are home safe from California.  Disneyland was a blast.  More tomorrow. *yawns*

Or more exactly, off to Seattle tonight to a lovely Doubletree hotel near SeaTac and then we'll catch an early flight to LAX and drive in to our first hotel in Anaheim where we'll stay two nights and then transfer to the condo until Friday.  I am so excited to have a holiday with just my husband, no kids!  And no I don't feel guilty for going to Disneyland without them.  We took them in February and now we get to go on everything they were too scared to go on or didn't want to go on more than once.  DH and I do Disney hardcore, so this'll be nice.  Not to mention we haven't been alone together for any real length of time without our children in a few years.

I know I'm ready for the break after the last year of homeschooling.  Though I have to admit (just so you don't think my son is always evil) that this week has been, more or less one of the best I've had with them since starting this thing.  At least as far as schoolwork goes.  I think I will forever have problems getting the boy to bed at a decent hour.  He's both a night owl and a lark.  He has limitless energy and doesn't need the same sleep requirements as everyone else in the house.  But he's been pretty good this week.  Gotten him into bed before midnight each night which is a major accomplishment, believe it or not.

So I've finished writing ch. 4 of The Boundaries of Temptation and am planning on finishing up ch. 5 on the car ride to Seattle  What?  I know it was a three chapter fic.  Didn't work out that way.  I'll probably post the first one on Sunday or Monday and the second one on Wednesday or Thursday, so you all have something from me while I'm on vacation and don't have to go the whole week.

Oh, crud.  I still have to print out the Mettle of Merlin and Strange Majicks for the airplane.  Guess I'll just have to save them to the hard drive and take a book.  Have a great week!  I know I will.  And Amy, I'll see you on Tuesday!

*hugs*