Evil Wrapped in a Fangirl Disguise

Drove up to Grand Coulee Dam with olivelavonne and sdrohc_ratiug. Beautiful day for it, even if it was a bit breezy and cold. It was all around an excellent day.



( More )

Natasha and I decided to go to the Tri-Cities anyway, so we're doing that tomorrow. Yea, Barnes & Noble! Yea, mall and civilization! Of course we are being smart and planning the mall trip for the middle of the day in the middle of the week. It'll be like a ghost town in there. Just the way I like it.

Yesterday a friend of mine from college, Rachel, drove over from Auburn and we spent the day doing the central/eastern Washington tourist-thing. By which I mean we drove around a lot and looked at basalt and saw the Sun Lakes, Dry Falls, Banks Lake (and Steamboat Rock), Grand Coulee Dam, and Summer Falls. It was tons of fun. Fantastic company, absolutely perfect day, beautiful countryside.

( Photos! And some home pride. )

Meanwhile, I have Dean/Castiel fic to post this afternoon/evening once I read it all the way through one more time.

I'm really enjoying the library, even if it is insane during the summer. I was supposed to work Thursday, but Wednesday night Shannon called and left a message saying, "the governor's offered a reprieve and you don't have to serve time tomorrow." Which made me laugh and was a bit of a relief since I had a bunch of housework to do.

It's interesting spending your day surrounded by people who average 3' tall and call, "Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" to get your attention. When you're not even a teacher. You never hear a kid yell, "Librarian!"

One of the boys, Jose, who's in there practically every day finally asked me what my name was. For the rest of the hour or so that he was there it was, "Mary! Mary! Mary!" Which I guess is better than "teacher."

Now I'm working on packing for my two week stay in Seattle. Mostly I am really looking forward to it. Time alone to read and write and watch TV. I'll only actually be alone for a few days, but still. It's nice.

Tomorrow we have to be out of here by 8:30 so that we can be in the Tri-Cities by 10:30. And then I'll go from there with my uncle, and possibly Tris, over to Seattle. Lots of time in the car.

omg James Marsters on Without a Trace? Weeeird. Not that I really watch the show, but CSI is over and I can't be bothered to change it. Anyway, I almost didn't recognize him because he was being, well, pretty subdued. Or serious. It's nice to see him do something a bit different.

( Speaking of CSI )

I have two episodes of Torchwood to catch up on and one episode of SGA. And Dexter.

Meanwhile, two websites that made me laugh this evening as I amuse myself in our hotel room:

- Garfield Minus Garfield. Seriously. I'm kind of in love with the comic strip that appears when Garfield is removed from the equation. For some reason, I'm especially liking the final one on the first page and Jon's, "This is not my lucky hat!"

- The 40 Most Inappropriate Children's Book Covers.

*

Yesterday Dad and I drove through Death Valley. Dropped from 7000 feet to 200-something below sea level. Fun times. And it was sunny and hot and flat, except for when we passed in and out of it. Definitely would not want to do something like that during the summer, though. I mean, with it as warm as it was yesterday in February I can only imagine how hot it is later in the year.

Right before Death Valley, though, we stopped in the ghost town of Rhyolite. That was interesting. Especially the house made of glass bottles. The nice volunteer woman told us that there are believed to be somewhere between twenty to thirty thousand bottles in the house, most of them beer and some of them medicine. The man who built the house in 1906 didn't wash any of the bottles, so you can look in some of them and see things. Kinda neat.

( Pictures: Bottle House )

Before that, though, we stopped some place for a bit of a break and the building across the street was called the Cherry Patch and was, duh, a whore house. House of ill repute? Whatever. It was obvious what they were selling there. With a pretty family friendly RV park across the street. Amazing.

Last night was spent in Bishop, CA and then this morning we drove up through some of the Sierra Nevadas. It was gorgeous.

( Pictures: Sierra Nevadas, Mono Lake(larger pics here) )

We wanted to get into Oregon to stop for the night, but were distracted by the little town of Virginia City, NV. Dad really wanted to go because he was nine the last time he was there. The town was a mining town (and seeing the web of mine shafts displayed to scale? Crazy.) and the town the characters on Bonanza often visited. And that was part of the draw for Dad, since he watched the show as a kid and was just tickled at nine to visit it. Even now, it was pretty cool.

Like Leavenworth, WA, it has a theme going for it. Western this time. So all the store fronts fit that. There are also several museums in town. Dad and I stopped at two of them: the Mark Twain Museum and the Way it Was Museum. What we learned was that Mark Twain started his writing career in the building in which the museum is kept in 1862. He was on the editorial staff of the Territorial Enterprise and was still writing under Samuel Clemens. I geeked out a bit over it all, like his desk and the old dictaphones and printing presses and things. So neat.

( Pictures: Virginia City )

And that's basically what's been happening. Everyone seems a bit surprised that we'll be home by Saturday (my grandma's birthday), but Dad and I are both ready to be home. I want my own bed and shower and closet. No more living from a suitcase. Plus, it feels like we've been gone longer since we've tried to do as much as possible. We're always driving somewhere.

So one more night on the road and then home.

In Salt Lake City tonight and we just got back from dinner with a friend of my dad's, Jauna. The dinner was very, very good. I had fresh salmon. Yum. And the company was great. Dad's known Jauna for about thirty years or so. While I've only met her twice, she's the kind of person that's just so open and herself that I don't feel at all awkward around her. Plus, today was her birthday, so it was a nice treat.

We got into the city around noon today, had lunch, and then checked into a hotel. Dad took a nap; I played my latest DS game. Then around four we went out because we felt that as long as we were in Salt Lake City we should see the Mormon Temple. At first we got on the freeway going the wrong way, which lead to an impressively small amount of panic. Sorted that out, though, and got to see a lot more of the city than we would have. Only drove by the temple. The building is impressive, as is a lot of the older architecture.

However, during our impromptu exploration we discovered that Salt Lake City is a bizarre combination of places in Washington. We'd be in one part of the city and say, "Hey, doesn't this look a lot like Yakima?" or, "This reminds me a lot of Spokane. And that looks just like Seattle."

Jauna tells us we should either leave tomorrow before seven or wait until nine to avoid rush hour. We're going to wait and then head for Mesquite, NV with maybe one or two brief side trips depending on how it goes. It'll be nice to sleep a bit later. Then it'll be nice to move back to Pacific Standard Time.

Dad and I are finally actually going to do what we talk about doing and have a bit of a vacation. Starting today. Woo! Of course, he said he wanted to leave by six this morning. While that isn't really going to happen, we'll still hopefully leave by eight.

We're planning on being gone about ten days to two weeks, which will actually make this the longest trip I've been on since I was three or so. There'll be lots of time spent in the car. Thankfully, I have plenty to read and occupy myself with.

The laptop's coming with so that we can keep an eye on weather. I'm hoping not to drop completely off the internet, but who knows.

Here's to a safe trip!

Dad and I are going on a little road trip next Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to it, since the last time I left Washington state I was in high school. So...five to seven years ago. We're driving down through Utah and up through Nevada since I've never been to Utah and the last time I was in Nevada I was roughly three years old. I remember parts of that trip, but, obviously, not a great deal.

Plus, we're going to see people we haven't seen in years and that's very exciting. The last time we saw my brother's godmother I was probably in middle school. Geez.

Before that, there are things I'm trying to get done. Not big things, but things that I've promised people I'd do. I also have a few pieces of writing I'm working on that I'd like to finish, or get nearer to finishing, before we go. However, I've generally become lazy with two of them and am waiting for feedback for the third.

But Sunday I did try my hand at writing what is basically porn. Or porn-like. Not explicit, but maybe a bit R-rated and actually a lot of fun to write. (Will I post it? I don't know. Natasha thinks I should.) Totally helped kick me out of my writing funk, too. Sometimes I get sucked into writing things that are too think-y when what I really need is to just have more fun.

Anyway, mostly I'm proud of myself since it was different and took me a little out of my comfort zone.