March 22 – 25
As I mentioned in my post announcing our new ride, Brandy just got back from a week in South Carolina visiting her property in Florence.
She got back to Des Moines Friday, the 22nd, and had to fly back out to San Diego on Monday, the 25th. There’s no reason to have driven an hour and a half to the airport to pick her up, an hour and a half back, then do it again three days later.
Instead, we rented an AirBnB in Des Moines.
It wasn’t a particularly exciting trip, it was just a standard weekend with no sightseeing on the docket.
Early Doctor Appointment
I got up early Friday as I had a doctor appointment in Iowa City, what would likely be my last follow up on my arm. I knew there was some rain and the possibility of snow in the forecast, and sure enough, right before I got to Iowa City, it did indeed start raining.
Then, before you new it, the rain turned into slushy snowy rainy snow, making the highway pretty slick. Traffic slowed to a crawl about a mile from my exit and I got squirrely enough in the new pickup that I threw it into 4 wheel drive, just in case. I finally made it to my exit and headed up highway 1 as the snow continued to drop. Traffic continued to creep along at a diminished pace until I finally found myself on Hawkins Dr.
The road leading up to the hospital is at a slight incline but with my 4WD engaged, I made it up with no issues at all.
The same could not be said for the gentleman trying to make it up the slippery slope in a RWD Dodge Challenger. His back wheels were just spinning and he was barely moving. He was getting sideways in the road, blocking the 4WD and AWD traffic piling up behind him. Eventually, we got to the parking garage. I darted in and quickly decided that the parking garage was entirely too small to be parking this big ol’ beast. I found my way out of the garage and headed right to the valet. By this point, my 10:00 appointment time had come and gone, and I had to pee.
I checked in right inside the front doors then headed to the orthopedics clinic, making a pit stop on the way.
I finally made it, checking in at the desk about 10 minutes late. Soon, I was ushered back to the radiology department where a series of x-rays were taken. I then walked myself to the clinic where I was roomed and left to sit to wait for my doctor. He was preceded by a sports medicine doctor, which, I think, is ironic because I don’t play any sports. She asked me a few questions, did a few tests, then Dr. Hogue came in and told me everything looked good, to call him if anything should come up.
I spent more time driving to my appointment than I did at the appointment.
I headed back to the front, paid the $15 for the valet service then waited for my truck. It finally showed up and I hopped in and made my way back home.
I loaded the stuff I’d packed for the weekend, leashed up Ash and made the hour and a half drive in the other direction to our home for the weekend.
Des Moines
The AirBnB we rented was a small 2 bedroom house. The second bedroom had a queen sized bed in it and it was a tight fit.
It was plenty for the three of us though.
I let us in and unloaded the stuff I’d taken. I then kenneled Ash and headed to a nearby Fareway to pick up some groceries for the weekend. I headed back to the house, made up a DiGiorno personal sized pizza, ate and watched a couple of movies while I waited for Brandy’s 10:30 pm arrival.
Finally, the time rolled around for us to head to the airport. We circled the terminal several times before she finally popped out. I threw her suitcase into the back seat with Ash and tore out of there back to the house.
By the time we got there, it was 11:00. We were both bushed so it wasn’t long before we were both in probably the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever laid in.
Saturday
The next morning, Brandy slept until 10:00. When she got up, we got ready and we headed out to Jethro’s for a barbecue lunch (Brandy was in South Carolina for a WEEK and didn’t get barbecue!!)
We ordered a half slab and 2 meat dinner, which included four sides and two pieces of cornbread.
The food arrived and we pigged out, eating most of it. We did box up some of the leftovers but they wound up not getting eaten.
After lunch, we headed over to the Outlets of Des Moines, the same outlet mall where we’d stopped on our way to Minnesota last August. We had already discussed what was going to happen, and sure enough, it happened.
We spent over $700 at the outlet mall. With stops at Old Navy, Maurice’s, Le Creuset and Vera Bradley, to name a few, it wasn’t a surprise that we would be dropping that kind of money.
It did not escape me that we easily spent that much money in one shopping spree when five years ago, I was having trouble paying the household bills, and if I did do something irresponsible- like dropping $750, say, on an ill-advised trip to Denver, or Santa Fe- something would have gotten turned off. Once again, I have to express my utmost gratitude for the opportunities we’ve been given.
Anyway, once we were done there, we headed back, let Ash out of his kennel, got high and watched Ricky Stanicky.
I made some popcorn and M&M’s while we watched, then, after that, I made dinner, we watched some more TV and then called it a night.
Sunday
Sunday, we did a lot less. We did some laundry, got high again, and just sat around doing a whole lot of nothing. I watched Poor Things (a super long movie, by the way) while Brandy took a brief nap.
When she got up, I made dinner then we picked up, packed up and got ready for our early departure Monday.
Monday – Back to the Grind
After another piss-poor night’s sleep, I was up at 3:00. I sat, watching Tik Toks until Brandy woke up. Once she was up, I loaded up everything that needed to be loaded up, started a load of laundry, took out the trash and we headed out just before 6:00. We made a stop at Scooters for coffee then on to the airport where I once more said good-bye to Brandy before making the hour and a half drive back home.
A Weekend Hardly Worth the Post
It was such a low-key weekend, if we had this weekend at home, I wouldn’t have even bothered with it, but I suppose the fact that we spent it in Des Moines made it blog-worthy.
While on this little not-even-a-vacation-getaway, Brandy did book another AirBnB for a week in Gunnison. We are already low on the THC-infused products we came back with and we are enjoying it so much, we want to make sure we have enough. After that, we won’t be home very long before we head out for two months in New England (with a stop in Cooperstown, NY!!!), then on to New Mexico for our annual green chile run.
We will have about 6 or 8 weeks home after that until we head down to New Orleans for a couple weeks then will be spending a week or two in Idaho for Christmas with my parents.
This year is shaping up to be a wild one for sure! I’m glad we have the truck now to provide us plenty of room to cart along up to two months’ of supplies with us. Working from the road, while not the most comfortable, will be made easier with a folding table, a folding camping chair and full sized monitors.
For now, we have a few months at home while we take care of some house work that needs to be done. I started renovations in my office, we are having our front deck rebuilt, our living room (which was built on the back deck) needs to be jacked up and leveled out and we are planning a garage sale in the middle of May. I also want to take a quick weekend getaway to Omaha to visit the zoo out there; Brandy reports it’s a nicer zoo than the Blank Park Zoo that we visited last May.
Other than that, I’m enjoying the calm before the storm.
Stay tuned!
-Phil