Tuesday, May 18, 2010

My Little "Vacation" of Sorts - Part 1

Disclaimer: Some of the things written in this entry, you may find to be disgusting, irritating, or just plain not funny. My sister and I happen to find that a good chunk of this entry is hilarious (we try to find the humor in everything). However, this particular post is written for the shear purpose of me being able to remember my trip to North Dakota.

This story has to be broken up into segments because it's just too long.

My dad called my sister and I back in January and told us that our grandma was not in the best of health and that we should consider taking a trip to see her before she dies (she is 95 years old).

Nancy happened to have 2 vouchers with an airline so she offered for her and I to use them to go see Grandma. We decided to be there over Mother's Day.

I flew to Seattle on Wednesday, stayed overnight with Nancy, and then we left together Thursday morning for the trip to ND.

Thursday, May 6
We had checked in online the night before our flight so we only had to check our suitcase when we got there. We decided to check our bag at curbside. There was a really nice older black man who helped us. So he picked up our bag (we decided to take only 1 bag since we had to pay to put it on the plane) and he said, "Hmm, feels like 46 pounds." Nancy and I looked at each other puzzled. He then put it on the scale and said, "Well, what do you know? It's 46 pounds!" We thought that one was funny.

I've determined that anytime you fly, it's a very long day (unless it's just a short flight). We left Nancy's house at 9:00 a.m. and landed in Jamestown, ND, at 7:00 p.m. (pacific time). The flights were fine. Just a long day. We had a great time talking and catching up (we hadn't seen each other in 1 1/2 years). We laughed and joked and just plain had a good time.

We deplaned and headed in to meet our dad (biological). We got our luggage and headed for home (New Rockford).

In the first 20 minutes of the car ride, we had heard the same story about Dad's shocks and struts on his car 6 times. As he was talking about the struts he said, "When I have to change the struts, I'm going to put on struts that'll make a semi seem rough." Now, I'm not exactly sure what that means but he thought it was important for Nancy and I to know.

About halfway home, Nancy was talking to her husband on the phone. Out of nowhere, a raccoon darts onto the road and seemingly stops right in front of us. I'm not too sure if Dad saw it right away, but Nancy and I did and we screamed. Dad swerved and missed it and our hearts were beating rather hard for several minutes after.

We got home and took our luggage to our bedroom. Dad followed right on our heels to show us how to fix the toilet in our bathroom after we flushed it.

He made sure to tell us at least 3 times how to fix the toilet and reiterated how important it was that we take care of it each time it was flushed! LOL!

We were trying to get unpacked and ready for bed and Dad just wouldn't leave the room. Apparently, he had some "things" he wanted to tell us. One of which just kept me laughing. (Dad was going to make sure that while we were in North Dakota we were introduced to his attorney and the mortician, or as I like to call him, funeral director.) It was so important that Dad just had to tell us again for the 10th time (or more) that Friday morning he would take us to see the mortician. Every time he said that word it made me laugh. I don't know why it's so funny. I couldn't even hold the smile back.

Dad finally decided to go to bed so we got ready, too. We went in the bathroom and got a closer look at it. My grandma moved into a nursing home in August, 2008, and the bathroom hasn't been touched since the day she left. It was never cleaned (eeeewwwww). It was gross!!!! There was a mountain of dust that had collected everywhere and our allergies (my sister has asthma) kicked into high gear! It was so bad that we couldn't go to bed til it was clean. Then we decided to go through the cupboards. There was stuff that had been there for many years. We got rid of everything!

I don't even think Dad noticed we cleaned out the bathroom (he doesn't even go to that part of the house).

For as long as I can remember, Grandma has always slept with many blankets on her bed. When we pulled the bedspread down, we uncovered about 6 blankets. Now, it was very cold there - about 30 degrees. But 6 blankets was just too many for me!

It just felt good to pillow our heads from a long day.

To be continued...

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