Well, "vacation" is a bit of a soft term. My obligatory leave of absence per the changing marital status of my sister. My older sister Hannah got married! First one out of four, which makes sense but also AAACK. No pressure. She decided that instead of having a super-stressful huge wedding at home, she'd have a mildly stressful tiny wedding in Oregon. So we went to Oregon! Four women in two planes, a rental car, and two hotel rooms. And here's some stuff that happened.
Wednesday: Left late, to my frustration. I'm the annoying one that stands there tapping her foot making angry grunting sounds and bitching about silly things like "traffic" and "security" and "I'm fucking starving and I wanna get a burrito." So to be less annoying I chugged a glass of wine, which only made me hot. So I was hot and irritable and late and hungry. Lovely combo.
The first plane ride was super rad, I was amped and bored and being obnoxious with Angie and Laura the whole time. We got to sit in the very back by the toilets, which was cool, except there was a really bitchy stewardess - pardon me, "bitchy flight attendant" - who wouldn't let us have water, so Laura died of thirst and then we had to deal with her dusty body and everything, which was a huge pain.
After the plane landed in FUCKIN SEATTLE, we drove around looking for someplace to eat, because my giant let's-get-Lindsay-to-shut-up burrito had worn off. We tried this one place and made reservations, but then did that thing where you sit and wait for your table and then realize that the prices are really high and Oh my gosh the servers are wearing bowties and maybe we should go somewhere else. So we told the hostess we were too poor, and then hightailed it to Dennys. Which was disgusting. I had a veggie burger that tasted like fish. Barf.
Then we drove in the dark in our pretend-fancy rented Chevy Malibu. The car was aight, but the seat felt like an upholstered toilet, and the steering wheel felt like a giant dildo that had warped in the sun, and the snarky computer went DING every time Laura unbuckled her seatbelt, which was A LOT.
We stayed in one room the first night, which was like a fun sleepover, if your Mom went to your sleepovers, which is kinda weird. Mostly we just passed out until we woke up from how annoying we were to each other in the morning. Lemme tell you, growing up with a bunch of girls is one thing, but traveling with them is a friggen test of your moral fortitude. I never understood how low-maintenance I really am until this trip. I don't need a hairdryer or fancy "clean" clothes, and all I really have to do in the morning is put on a bra and brush my teeth. Not these girls, nuh uh. They need five different lotions and a machine to dry their hair and makeup and outfits and shit. Shit. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, ya know?
So Thursday we hung out in Seaside at our second hotel. The drive there was fun because Washington and Oregon are PRETTY and covered in bumpy land and green stuff. The towns are weird, tiny tourist traps that perch on the edge of the ocean like they're gonna jump in any minute. In case you were wondering, the state bird of Washington is the Mexican restaurant, and the state flower is the Espresso bar. In the Midwest we joke about how there are two McDonald'szes in every town, but that's nuthin. In Or-a-gun and Wash-in-ton there will be one shady-ass looking Mexican restaurant here, called "Uncle Bean's Super Sketch Cantina" or something, and ANOTHER one right across the street called "Casa Del Copycat." And presumably they are all doing fine in business or whatever because they are EVERYWHERE. There is the obligatory seafood place for the tourists, I assume, but the Oregonian and the Washingtonese dine primarily on beans and cheese. Which is cool, more power to ya. I'm just worried about the state of your coffee-and-pinto stuffed colons, honestly. I was only in the area for four days and I barely came out alive.
In Seaside we swam in the hotel pool, which was fun even though I searched the whole town of SEAside for a fucking swim suit and the best I could find was a tank top and gym shorts at the back of a drug store. Shopping in that town is not easy, because even though it has thirty hotels and fifty Mexican diners, the roads are only equipped to hold five cars at a time, and if you want to turn left during the day you have to use flares and snow plows to get in.
Anyway, swimming was fun, and I used the jacuzzi jets to blast away the stiffness in my farming legs, which Angie and Laura thought was disturbing for some reason probably having nothing to do with the noises I made. Some bitch and her bitch husband brought their bitch children into the pool though, so we had to stay in the deep end and have sinking contests for like AN HOUR. I discovered that I can't sink, which is comforting?
We went on an adventure looking for a place to eat around 9:30, which is apparently past the time we were allowed to be hungry. Wandering around a daylight-only tourist town at night is pretty freaky, especially when there is literally circus music playing from nowhere, and creepy fluorescents lighting up the window displays, and an invisible river making threatening sloshing noises under your feet.
That night we slept in two different rooms, so naturally we watched cable until really late and then fell asleep farting on each other at like 2 a.m. Seriously, the farting was pretty bad. I'm not gonna say who it was, but she was really smelly and she wasn't me or Angie.
The next day was FRIDAY, also known as Wedding Day! Yay! We woke up and spent three hours getting ready, in solidarity with the bride. I put on my hoochie-mama dress that I paid a lot for, and we got dolled up. Hannah's friend Jon drove us to the park in his MERCEDES FUCKING BENZ, which was pretty pimp. The park was on top of a cliff over the ocean, which was photogenic as hell. So naturally we took shit tons of photos. We were there for four hours, and probably posing for three hours and forty-five minutes.
We ate grilled peppers and mushrooms and asparagus and zucchini, which was just what the doctor ordered, and then Hannah got MARRIED!!! She looked like a fairy, but in a classy way. And I didn't make gagging noises at the sugary parts of the ceremony, which I think shows a lot of growth.
After the wedding, we went back to the hotel and wallowed in our sunburnt exhaustion, then we went back to Cannon Beach to shove more money into our pie holes. Angie and I had to go on an adventure to find somewhere to pee. I feel like that happens too much. We ate and talked with Jason's family, had champagne, regretted eating so much, then drove back to the hotel. For some unknown reason we went to Dairy Queen a few hours later, which was disgusting and greasy and totally not worth standing in line with a barking dog and Oregon's only five fat people.
The fart wars continued that night, only this time Laura had backup, in the form of someone else that wasn't Angie. So we fell asleep, fat and happy, with the window open. In the morning we had to check out of the hotel, LATE AS USUAL GRUMBLE GRUMBLE SNORT SNORT, and drive to Rockaway Beach!
Rockaway Beach is an awesome little seaside town founded during WWII. It was about an hour out of our way, but we drove there because our Gramma lived there in the forties and we wanted pictures and evidence to show her. We frolicked on the beach and picked up some extremely sanitary rocks and things that looked like rocks, and then we ate at another fucking diner. I think I consumed about two bottles worth of ketchup on this trip, which is apparently "unattractive." Whatever.
And then there was driving. A lot of driving. We had to get from Rockaway to Seattle in time for our flight, which included one stop for Starbucks, one stop for gas, two stops to pee, one stop for a roadside cherry stand (friggen D-LISHHH), and one stop for Olive Garden where I had more alcohol and food to mellow me out. Which only sorta worked.
We made our way to the airport with Angie driving, which was only temporarily terrifying, and then ran around Seatac for an hour peeing in places and dropping shit. Laura stopped at every outlet to charge her iPhone, Angie fell asleep on people if you didn't keep an eye on her, Mama asked a lot of questions about airports, and I slowly inflated like a pained balloon full of coffee and carbs (NOT HEROIN, I SWEAR) until I was in the perfect state of discomfort for a four hour flight.
This flight was awful. The plane was hot as balls, and not just the normal part of the balls, the sticky, smelly crevasse where dreams go to die. The big guy in front of me had his seat back the whole time, so my Amazonian legs were either crossed or tucked under or warped like a pretzel. It really helped that I hadn't put my belt back on after security, so my jeans were falling down as well. And my ipod died an hour in. And I was bloated as Veruca Salt.
The only thing that slightly numbed the experience was popping a melatonin and falling asleep for virtually the whole flight. But it wasn't really sleep, it was "sleep." I was in a semi-conscious state of discomfort: my brain was asleep, but my neck had to stay awake in order to let me know that it wanted a pillow, and my legs were awake from being periodically shoved back into their sockets by Mr. Needs-three-extra-inches in front of me, and my stomach was awake from having invisible bubbles of air rolling around in it and threatening to escape every time the pilot curb-checked a cumulonimbus. To top it all off, when my drugged-up eyes opened, all I could see next to me was Princess Angie, sleeping like an angel with her puffy neck pillow and her comfy yoga pants. I wanted to be awake and angry and reading Cosmo, but noooo.
I did finally pee in an airplane bathroom for the first time ever, which isn't as awful as I expected. I was a little disappointed at how easy it was. And I am calling bullshit on that Mile High Club thing, there is NO WAY that is possible. Those "rooms" are designed to have just enough room to evacuate yourself and nothing else. If it had been half an inch smaller I would have been standing up and praying for the best.
Anyway, we landed and drove home and I slept all day, and now here I am! Here are some things seen on the side of the road in Wash and Oregon:
- Lots of hobos. But not REAL hobos, hitchhiking trust fund hippies with $200 Nordstrom backpacks and salon-styled dreadlocks. We were tempted to pick one up, but the signs said not to.
-A truck with a huge spray painted plywood sign that said "ELK JERKY." Either it's a weird-ass gay club, or someone was taking advantage of the tourist's sense of whimsy.
-A truck advertising a thrift store sale, with a big pink plastic Jesus sticking out of the bed, and the legs of a female mannequin hanging out the driver-side window with some nice brown heel sandals on.
-Some bitch pedestrian that I almost killed turning right onto the road. She yelled something at me, but it wasn't "SORRY I'M A MORON, I'LL GO HOME NOW," so I didn't pay any attention.
-Another hobo with some blinky lights on his rolling backpack. Seriously, the West coast version of poor is very different from ours. I'm assuming there are still poor people, because a lot of the neighborhoods were really tiny and shabby, but that was it. The roads were immaculately maintained. Maybe the roads and hobos are paid for with tourist money, because MAN were they milking us for all they could get.
Anyhoo, I should go to bed. More like a two hour nap. Maybe I'll skip Job #1 and get some sleep. We'll see.
Ciao!
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