Just got back from vacation. My mom's been wanting to do a big family vacation for quite some time.
At first, we made plans to go to California. We wanted to try to go to Disneyland and the beach, and I was both nervous and thrilled because I'd never been on a plane before, or, indeed, outside the state of Utah. My uncle was going to help cover the cost of our flight and hotel. I made sure to give my job plenty of notice.
Unfortunately, there were too many of us (we invited Christine and Joel and their kids to come with us) and so the price would be way too high, even by Uncle Scot's standards. He's a generous man, but not that generous.
So, we stayed in Utah, but we went to a place called Park City, where we rented a condominium for two nights. Uncle Scot did take the liberty of paying for the condo.
It wasn't all I thought it would be. We thought there would be a pool and we wanted to try to go on the Alpine Slide, but there wasn't a pool anywhere nearby, the weather was a little too fickle anyway, and almost everything cost an arm and a leg, since this is a more upscale town in the mountains. Mom was horrified at how much our first dinner cost. We ended up splitting the costs among everybody.
At least the food tasted great, so I feel I got my money's worth there. The spaghetti and meatballs, and the Annex Saloon Burger and fries, were among the absolute best I'd ever had. On our last night, we ordered Domino's pizza and crazy bread to be delivered right to our door. That was very tasty, too.
And there was plenty to see, we were able to buy at least a few souvenirs, and we sure got plenty of exercise. We had to pay for parking, so most of our sightseeing took place on foot. My body's killing me, yet it was surprisingly hard to sleep at night.
The condo itself was very nice. Rustic luxury, you might say. We had super-comfy beds and amazing shower stalls (the one I used was a glass box) and there was even a little office nook in the kitchen, the perfect place to set up my laptop.
But as I said, I had a tough time settling down to sleep. Maybe it was because I was in an unfamiliar place, or my biological clock was a little off. Either way, I just kept waking up, and it rained both nights, so the rain kept me awake, too.
By the time we had to go home, I'd pretty much had my fun, although leaving was still a bittersweet feeling. We made sure most of our stuff was packed and ready to go the night before. We ended up leaving an hour ahead of time; we had to be out of there by 10:00 and it was just a little after 9:00 when we drove down the mountain.
We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast. I'm used to their burgers and fries, but their breakfast stuff is really nice, too. I had a bacon and egg McGriddle, so it was essentially an egg patty with bacon strips between two pancakes engraved with the McDonald's "M."
Then we went to the Olympic Park, but again, everything cost too much there, although we did get a few more souvenirs, so at least we didn't walk away empty-handed.
That's when we finally headed for home.
I was sure glad to see Pippin. We asked our friend Kayalauna to come feed her, and she said the poor kitty really missed us; she let Kayalauna pet her for a good while.
Overall, it wasn't a fantastic vacation, but it wasn't bad. I'm glad I went, but I'm glad to be home, too.
And, of course, I took as many pictures as I could. All I had was my Smartphone, but I think I managed to capture some pretty cool shots.
