Vacation Recap... The good, the bad and the ugly...

We spent the last week and a half traveling between our home in Nebraska and Bakersfield California. Why? We were going to the Goode 2007 National Waterski Tournament. My mom was the Chief Safety Director, which was exciting for her. We were going to get to see the best of the best skiers in the country in all age groups. That was exciting for me. We were also going to get a chance to see the country side and visit with old friends.
Friday, our trip started earlier than we had planned. My dad got off of work at 1:00, so by 3:00 PM we were on the road. We took off and headed west on I-80. We were nearly to I-76 when the sky began to cloud up. We saw a tornado, which was completely awesome. Mostly because it was far enough away we didn’t need to worry, and it was in the middle of nowhere, so it was likely that very few people suffered damage as a result.
We got to Denver and got gas (way later than I would have liked). We thought we would stop somewhere in the summit area, but everywhere seemed to be booked or crazy high prices. We finally stopped in Beaver Crossing or some place like that. When we left Saturday morning it was 54 degrees. We got to Arches National Park pretty early. We went on a hike to the Wall Arch. It was great to get out of the car, even if it was 100 degrees outside! We left right on time and began heading to Bakersfield. We were going to drive right through Las Vegas on our way. Because I’d never seen the strip and we were going to be there at night, we decided to drive straight through downtown. That was a much longer detour than we’d expected. We left only to get stuck in a traffic jam just outside of town. Turns out there had been a terrible accident. (Thank you Lord for the delay that kept us from being involved in that accident.) We began the search for a hotel. Did you know that regular hotels are illegal in Nevada? Neither did we. Every single hotel we found was attached to a casino. We really didn’t care to stay at a casino hotel, so we kept driving hoping for anything else. Nothing. We finally decided to stay at a casino… we tried went in and tried to find the hotel front desk, but it was nowhere to be found. Did you know that hotels don’t exist in Southeast California? Neither did we. We finally stopped just outside of Barstow for the night, but much much later than we wanted.
We got up Sunday, a bit sleepy, but happy that we were almost there. We got to Bakersfield around 11am, too early to get into our room, so we stopped at the site so Mom could do her “safety inspection” of the lakes, etc. Got into our room at the hotel, got unpacked and found out that a ton of people had complained because the hotel wasn’t as nice as everyone who had volunteered in the past had been accustomed to. We figured it was Bakersfield, so it wasn’t like there was a huge selection of “really nice” hotels, the room was fairly clean (albeit old and gross in many ways), and the neighborhood didn’t seem too bad. Many of the people relocated, but since we had already unpacked, we were content to stay, thinking that pretty much everywhere was like this hotel.
Monday night my friend came out with her fiancé. I left the baby with my mom for a while so we could go shopping for picnic supplies for the next day. We also enjoyed a Mexican barley soda together at the hotel and chatted for a while. I have to say that she has found a keeper. He was such a sweetheart and was great with the baby. A+ Lady! Anyway.. We got to see some superstar skiing that day. Mens 1 and 2 Jump (men aged 18 through about 28?) was scheduled for that afternoon so we hung out and watched them jump nearly 200 feet. I hope that they had fun.The rest of the week was pretty much the same. The parents rode out to the lake with friends who were staying in the same hotel since they all had to be there at the butt-crack of dawn. We arrived later in the morning, usually around 10 after the baby got up had breakfast and a nap. We made quite the show coming in each morning.. The baby sat in his wagon, which was thoroughly loaded down with cooler, camera bag, diaper bag, toy bag, food supplies and a carpet to lay down.

Tons of people came up to me and commented about how they had watched us come in every day. The baby thoroughly enjoyed the wagon, more than he would have a stroller, and it was very convenient for carrying all of the “junk” that we needed in.
The fire in Santa Moncia gave us quite a show with its nasty smoke blocking out the sun for a few days. On the worst day it was as dark as it normally is at sunset at around 3:00 in the afternoon. It actually got lighter as the day went on and the sun set, getting beyond the range of the smoke.


Friday night some “friendly” neighbors got into the hotel and stayed in the room next to us. They were loud and obnoxious. Their child (probably 3 or 4) proceeded to scream through a majority of the night, followed by his mother’s yelling “NO” at him many times as well. Saturday morning I awoke to them screaming again. I got up and started cleaning up a bit, packing a few things here and there. Then I started to smell the smoke. What they were smoking I’m not sure of, but I decided it was time to leave. We headed to the lake and spent the rest of the afternoon with my parents. There was supposed to have been an “Officials Appreciation Banquet.” I have to tell you that if I showed up somewhere at 6:30 every morning for 6 days, working until late afternoon each day, spent several hundred dollars to get to the location to do this work, all as a volunteer, I probably wouldn’t have felt very “appreciated” at all. Normally the appreciation banquet is at a hotel with a buffet, complete with a bar and cocktail hour before-hand. Not this time. 2:00 began “cocktail hour.” On what planet warm bud light constitutes a “cocktail” I’m not sure, but that is what cocktail hour consisted of. The food was okay, but we were all crammed into a teeny backyard fighting the flies off while we tried to eat it. Our beverage choices were staggering.. I had a hard time choosing between warm bud light and warm water. So, after the crappy motel and the crappy banquet many of the officials weren’t very thrilled with how “appreciated” they were, and the “good stuff” hadn’t even happened. Now, I had been defending the hotel all week. Saying Bakersfield doesn’t exactly have the Ritz Carlton, and it isn’t exactly a wealthy area, so when I say what I am about to say, please don’t think I’m being overly critical. We got back from the “lack of appreciation” banquet as I’d like to dub it, and immediately started packing. With much coaching (and amusement on my part) from others staying at the hotel we finally got the back of the truck loaded, leaving nothing behind… My dad wanted a shower, but we skipped it and headed out the door. I’d say we left around 5 or 5:30. Apparently 30 minutes after we left some sort of crack deals started going on, women started turning tricks outside of the room that was directly below us (where we had just finished packing up the truck.) Things got loud and crazy. The police were called. They showed up sirens blaring, got out, looked around and LEFT!!! The night was quite exciting complete with Police having guns drawn and all kinds of gang activity. Our friends who had stayed in the room just below us had been contacted by the front desk and told under no circumstances should they leave their room... for their own safety... Needless to say I am very VERY glad we left when we did… We were supposed to have stayed that night. There are many other problems that occurred, but I don’t want to bore you with the details. As we were leaving, we all discussed how “rushed” we all had felt. None of us had been in any hurry to get out of there, and no one had intentionally rushed any of the others, however we had all felt rushed when we were leaving. I honestly believe that it was the Holy Spirit impressing it upon us. Had we not packed up quite as fast as we had, we would have been out in the middle of the parking lot during the whole “shoot-out” and crack deal gone bad… Again, thank you Lord for getting us out of there when we did! (Oh, on a side note.. the skiers had been directed to MUCH MUCH nicer hotels than the dive we were told we HAD to stay in…) Next year, we might come back to watch my Dad and Mom ski (should they qualify, which is likely), however we will be staying in our Camper or some other more friendly accommodation.
We had heard that I-70 through Grand Junction CO was pretty much a no-go due to some truck explosion earlier in the week, so we decided to take a “short cut” (rather a 8 hour detour) to the Grand Canyon. That was incredibly exciting. The canyon is absolutely beautiful and completely amazing. We also got to see quite a bit of Route 66 on the way. That, however was incredibly sad to me. Such a piece of American History and it is pretty much dilapidated and gone. Many of the old stops are shut down, falling down and destroyed. I am sure there are some stretches that aren’t quite as bad.. But the stretch along I-40 through Arizona wasn’t much to talk about. I think someday I want to actually tour the route before it is completely gone.
Saturday night we stopped in Kingsman AZ. We stayed at a Hampton Inn and Suites.. If you haven’t had the pleasure, you should do so. Perhaps it was the change from the shabby motel we had previously been at, but for the price, the pillow top mattress, big fluffy duvet beautiful bathroom, etc. were absolutely wonderful. It’s just too bad the baby decided he needed to nurse the entire night and cried every hour on the hour, leaving me awake for the entire night.

Sunday night, for only 10 less we paid at the Hampton we stayed at the shabbiest Days Inn Ever. It was in Las Vegas NM. It was pretty scary. We got out of the car and you could hear the coyotes scream as if to say.. We’ve got our kill… and its YOU! We made it home Monday night, just missing a terrible storm by minutes. There had been 70 mph winds that had knocked out signs, lights and the cover/canopy part of a gas station. It was crazy!
Needless to say, we are glad to be home. The baby is finally back on his normal schedule and I’m starting to get unpacked. I had a good time traveling, but I’m glad that we aren’t going anywhere for a while. Not until our next trip to visit Daddy. I certainly have no plans of staying in a Howard Johnson Express in Bakersfield anytime in the near future. The baby did extremely well traveling until the very end… But to tell you the truth, I wanted to cry and I was tired of being in the car too, so you can’t really blame him, can ya?

P.S. I really wanted to load this thing down with pictures too, but it got too out of control.. So here is a link to the photos from our "2007 Nationals" adventure...