Traveling

The past two weeks were long but needed to restore some of my sanity.  Life at work was more than stressful as was trying to determine whether I was going to be traveling for work for 4 months or not. I found out the night before I was supposed to leave that I was not going to be gone and while I was disappointed I was looking at the silver lining that maybe, just maybe I wasn't supposed to go as there is so much I need to do right now. But first things first.

Regardless of whether I was going to be gone for training for work for 4 months, I had to take my oldest back to college for his last year of school. It was very bittersweet. He spent the last semester with me taking classes at the local college and it was wonderful. I had both my boys here. The only person missing to make my home complete was my daughter. She was off at school enjoying her Junior year of high school and creating memories. Well, my oldest had so much stuff I made the decision months ago I would torture him one last time and we would drive half way across the country to return him to school. He might disagree, but I enjoyed the one on one time with him. I realized when I dropped him off that it was probably one of the last times I would get to spend so much quality time with him.

So off we went. First stop was to visit with my Aunt Jamie. She is the oldest of the sisters on my mom's side of the family. She is my Godmother and the favorite.  We had a delicious dinner and then hit the road and stayed the night in Palm Springs. I didn't realize until the next morning that we were on a golf course. I swore once again (I did the last time I spent the night in Palm Springs) that I would return for a week of pure spoiling. We took off the next morning for our next stop. Of course my son who was not happy about driving couldn't understand why I wanted to stop for the night and not keep driving. Well, gee honey, you see dear ol mom is getting old. We can't go non-stop like that anymore. My legs swell, I need comfort, proper rest, etc...  Funny side not here, when he complained to his dad about not going straight through his dad said almost exact same thing I did. The best part of this leg of the trip was getting to stop at Portillos.  If you haven't had Portillos oh my goodness you so need to. This is where it got difficult. Until this point, I was able to avoid carbs, gluten, etc and even at Portillos I just tried to eat the beef, but well the dipped Italian Beef sandwich made it soooo difficult.  I ate part of the bread and within minutes regretted it.

We really live in a beautiful country. I rediscover new things on each of my trips. Watching the sun set over the desert and mountains was so majestic.  We arrived at our destination, again in the dark, but were able to get a quick meal at Applebees and then off to sleep. The next leg of the trip introduced me to southwest Texas. I wasn't missing anything. The only thing missing was the warmth. As we continued to drive east the temps dropped to freezing. Imagine my joy the next day when we got to drive through the snow as we headed north out of Texas. I was happy when our drive came to an end, but I was very sad to drop my son off.  He is off to do great wonderful things, but I will miss him.

Tomorrow I will talk about my few days around there and when my return home.  I am amazed I still want sunflower seeds and bacon jerky. LOL