I gotta get on day shifts.

I have been known to exaggerate a time or two... or frequently. (But I always tell when I do!!) Sorry for all that guys, but this story is 100% true.




Last night I had a moment brought to me by night shifts and sleep deprivation. I have my plans all set and ready to go for my cousin's wedding trip back to SD tomorrow. The outfit, how to get to and from the airport, who will take care of Molly in my absence... When all of a sudden I couldn't for the life of me remember if I had bought my plane tickets. Literally forgot... couldn't remember anything!! So, I sat there and racked my brain about what to do for the next 5 minutes while having a mini panic attack. Yup, took my brain that long to come up with a plan of what to do next. As soon as I figured out that I should probably look through my email for an itinerary I began to flip through my folders. Inbox: nope. Travel folder: nada. Important folder: nothing. Spam folder: no luck.

Ok, seriously panicking now.

On to the Delta website to try and find it there. Delta.com mobile won't let me access that information. Darn! Try the work computer... "can't find your trip" message pops up. Uh-oh... I am seriously screwed. Look up new flight information: $2300!!!!!! Start to plan what I will say to all of my family and my cousin who is getting married to let them know that while I have been making dinner plans and getting everyone excited, I have negleted to even purchase my ticket. Can't come up with anything that doesn't make me sound like a complete idiot. Ponder how this could have happened. It must have gotten missed because the Delta mobile website doesn't let me purchase a ticket for some weird reason. I suddenly remember having this problem and saying, "I'll have to book it when I get home." Did I do it? DID I??? Nothing... no memory. Another wave of anxiety rushes over me.

Ok, I am forgetful sometimes but jeez, this is a big one.

Decide it is probably best to check my bank statement to see if there was even one purchased. Get all the way through the security of the website and start to look before I realize I wouldn't have written a check for this, I would have put it on my credit card. Duh! Log off bank website, log onto credit card website. Scroll down... scroll down...

BAM!! There it is... "Delta.com  PDX to RAP. August 30."

(Party in my head) Now just to find my stinking itinerary!! Search the Delta website yet again to no avail. Can't figure out why this is so difficult. Find a customer service number. Dial 3 times before I get it right. Realize this is the wrong number to call and hang up. Find a new customer service number. Dial.

Ring ring. Ring ring. "Thank you for calling Delta. How can I help you?"

Oh, sweet Jesus... thank you!! A person to help me!!! Took me about 3 minutes to convey my message that should have just simply said, " I am having trouble finding my itinerary online. Could you email me another copy?" When the poor lady figured out what I was muttering about, she kindly obliged and I was on my merry way.

Wow. This is not your brain on drugs... this is your brain on night shifts.

Continuing on

Now that we were done in both MS and TN, we were headed back to SD. As always, we wanted to take a different route than ever before. Maybe not the smartest of ideas, it was the most bored I have ever been for16 solid hours.

 I positively love reading what people think their state's slogan should be.

So bland, so vague, such lies!

 I just wanted to get a shot of my BAMF-mobile and Shawna together at last. Hey Shawna, "Where'd ya get that 4Runner?!"

 At least these guys have a safety warning and not just some marketing ploy to get you to believe their state doesn't suck.

 Think I've don't this pose before. Uh oh... going to have to find some new material.

 How about this instead? It was fairly appropriate considering I quite literally almost fell asleep at the wheel. Have you ever driven across this stretch? Good... DON'T.

 Showing me what she thinks of my decision to go on this interstate.

Now we're hitting familiar territory. (The states, not me and the pole.)

 Awwww yeeeaaahhh.

 Molly needed to get in on the picture-taking. She stares intently at my every move as if we are just going to leave her there in our caravan, on the side of the road. And every time when I get back into the car after a solid 45 seconds of snapping state sign shots, she acts as if she is so excited that I in fact didn't leave her somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

 So I am quite literally on my way to Oregon and I still don't have a place to live. We all know how well I do without control of my situation. Needless to say I was freaking out a little bit. At every opportunity (drive thru's, gas stations, hotels for the night) I was searching for a place on Craigslist. This is for real where I thought I was going to have to set up camp when I arrived.

 100 degrees and not a cloud in the sky??? I'll make my own shade, thankyouverymuch Kansas.

Now you wait just one gohl-darn minute... what in the hell is a Chinese Massage parlor duing in the (windowless) upstairs of a seedy 'Travel Center?'

Home Grown

Everything has an ending point, and this was ours for Tennessee. We were packed up and ready to go. We hadn't had a proper shower or even any resemblance of a breakfast, but we were running late as usual.We were hoping to make it to Tupelo by nightfall. Mississippi bound!

"Shawna, show me your excited to leave Tennessee face!" Knowing I wouldn't stop until she did, she flashed a quick yet fake smile and promptly turned her back to finish packing up the goods. Notice we aren't even parked properly in the few spaces that are left. Yeeeaaahhhh... don't care.

On our way back to SD at the end of the TN tour, Shawna was awesome enough to let me take a trip through my old stomping grounds. Wait, can it be called "stomping grounds" if I was too young to be doing any kind of 'stomping?' This is what we found the next day.

 

 Wait a minute...

Shawna was driving and obviously was trying to pull a quick one. Guess we all know what she really thinks now, huh?

 So we went past my old house... or should I say, 'where my old house used to be.' How sad!! So I walked around the lot, telling Shawna where each and every thing that I could remember was.... "Here was where the pool was, the trampoline, the knotty oak tree we used to climb, the treehouse my dad built... etc." Until finally I got quiet, standing in the middle of the lot. A solitary tear welled up in my eye: I spouted off some crybaby line like, "THIS is all that is left of my childhood memories??!!" Yeah, yeah  How sad for me, I know...

 The only thing alive left standing, and I don't even remember the tree. Dang it!

 The neighbor across the street pulled in while I was snooping around. I decided to go ask him if he knew what happened to the house. He did, in fact, because his mother had lived across the street since before we had even moved in! He said that it went through a few different owners since we left back in 1992 and finally ended up in the grubby little hands of a not-so-nice couple. The couple would fight and yell and bicker all the time, until one day the guy had finally had enough. He set the house on fire to get her out of it!!! Oh, my, goodness... what is the matter with people?! Anyways, Paul (the neighbor) said there were probably drugs involved and the plot had stayed vacant and untouched ever since.

 Right down the road was Elvis Presley's birthplace. Literally, this is the house he was born and raised in. There is a huge memorial and you can even take a tour of the one bedroom house. He and his parents lived here until he was 16 when they moved a short ways away to Memphis so he could become a star. I remembered this exactly from when I was a child... led us right there from memory even! Of course, they have added on and made it just a little more touristy since then.

 Nice to meet you, Mr Young Presely.

 Elvis at 13, showing Shawna how to act like a star.

 Take tips Shawna, you'll be a guitar hero in no time!

 This is the most rediculous thing I have seen all year...

A fountain with a jet of water for every year that Elvis lived in Tupelo, MS. There is birth, the next 16 years, then in a tiny little corner off to the left...

Death... 1977.

 Hurry Hurry!! No time to stop for a photo because the old ladies behind us were REALLY big Elvis fans and needed to get into the parking lot PRONTO. Seriously... with the honking and tailgaiting, I didn't know if we were going to make it out alive.

 Next we stopped off at the church that my family had moved down here for in the first place. Out in the woods all kinds of crazy things can happen without the general population finding out about it...

Such a pew burnings and what-not...

Creepy Southern Baptists.

 Between all of our belongings in the back and having to check out of the hotel before we left, there was no place for Molly and I to sit except for in the exact same spot. Unfortunately for me, she actually takes up more space than I do!

 The church from afar... exactly as I remembered it. Such a creepy feeling.

Nice to know...

NOW!!!

Last night and day

It took us quite a while, but we were finally sad to leave Tennessee. Just in time... it was our last night of work.

Whew... Starbucks to the rescue.

 My Work-BFF was so kind to honor my last night with some local Chinese food. This is what my fortune cookie said. Good call, sir.

 It's not the same without you, little buddy.

The following day... our last day in Tennessee... we met a few of the girls from work out for some pizza and beer. Couldn't think of a better send-off.

Nichole, Debbie and Shawna.

Me, Amanda and her hubbs.

The gang with an after shot of the pizza that we straight up demolished.

Had to get an individual shot with everybody. These guys will be sorely missed.

Debbie Dabby Doo!!! I really bonded with this girl. She really needs to come back to Oregon.

 What an amazing soul.

I am so bummed we never really got the chance to hang, but so glad that Amanda and her hubby got a babysitter and came out... on his birthday... to send us off. How awesome! He was the funniest dude. A little honkey-tonk and he knew it. It was the best time to listen to him talk and try to figure out what in the hell he was talking about. 

As promised, I built a fort for Shawna and I to spend our last night in. The rental company had come and picked up the furniture earlier that day, we had packed up almost everything and placed it all into its proper tub. What is there left to do, you ask?? Build a fort, of course! I'm kinda the master of childish things, if you haven't noticed. 

We even got our own rooms. Molly was a bed hopper all night so that she could keep us both warm. 

Slacker

I am such a slacker... I've not posted anything for far too long. It has been a crazy adventure! I have traveled back to SouDak to visit my mom for her and her twin sister's birthday, then to Ashland to visit Paul, then to Arizona to vacation with Paul, next to Virginia for a quick visit with Kristi and Gavin, last to Florida for a snippit of the family vacation! Whew!! So after my last 3 days working in Knoxville, Shawna and I threw everything into the back of the cars and came back to SD for a visit on our way back through to Oregon. Only, it isn't all rainbows and butterflies... Shawna and I have to divorce. (sad face interjected here) We decided it was what was best for our futures and possible love-lives. I will go to southern Oregon where we did our first assignment, she will head up to northern Oregon to be with family. It will be a big change, but I think we are ready for the next chapter in our lives. For all of those who have already and will ask this question: I GET MOLLY. I'm not only being selfish, that was the agreement from the beginning. We have remained amicable thus far... wish us luck!!


Oh yeah, many updates to come soon!

Flo-RIDE-uh

Deveraux Family vacation. Panama City Beach, Florida. May 2012. Boom.

Ever tried to take a self-portrait with cars whizzing by at 70 mph? Kinda awkward, even for me.

Skipped a few state signs, but I knew I could get 'em on the way back.

Panama City Beach, Florida! Whew... I made the 9 hour drive in one piece! Such a beautiful sunset, it made it all worth it. Oh yeah, that AND seeing my awesome family. 

This was the view from the balcony. How lucky was I??!!

 

Fun haters.

 

Freshly manicured toes in warm sand while listening to the sounds of the ocean. Nuthin' better.

This is how my family roles... Women in the kitchen, men attempting to boss us around, women doing what they want anyways. Left to right: Karen, Lisa, Tsenre, Tina. And yes, the twins are wearing matching outfits. They went shopping together before the trip to make sure they

would match every day.

The quiet ones (Grandma and Steve) keeping to themselves until dinner is served. 

After dinner we still had WAY too many shrimp left. We decided to prep them for the next morning's breakfast. Or lunch or whatever they ended up doing with them. 

First time for everything! Being this close to some of the tastiest seafood... gotta try something new! Hardly any of us had experienced oysters so we all went to a local favorite restaurant and ordered pretty much one of everything to try.

After trying every kind of oyster and a few other tasty treats, we started discussing dessert. What better than some local key lime pie?! We started looking up places we could find it, but being about 5 pm all the bakeries were closed. So me being not-so-shy asked the waiter if he knew of anywhere. Fortunate for us, they had some here! But... they only sold it by the slice. That would be way to expensive for like 15 people. :(  So after a little persuasion from me and a little flirting from Amber, he got his boss to give us a discount. Score!!

 It was pretty tasty, but the story made it better for all of us.

 

Unfortunately I wasn't able to cross this off my bucket list. Next time. 

How adorable is this?!

 

I couldn't get enough of this sky. 

We were high enough up we could see directly down into the water. Saw plenty of wildlife... stingrays, dolphins and probably a shark (way out).

 At the fish market, headed for the shrimp boat.

 The lady that all the locals sent us to. She was HILARIOUS to boot!!

 Ewwwww....

 Did you know that Halibut have both their eyes on one side of their head? Creepy little buggers.

 Cheers!

 Grandpa... tell me how you REALLY feel!

 Grandpa getting his first tattoo at the age of 77. Don't worry, it was just a temporary one.

 Lauren taking her turn next.

 Amber, like me, knew exactly what she wanted.

Grandpa showing off his masterpiece. It is his nickname for Grandma, "Blossom." My favorite moment of the whole vacation was when he showed it to her.

  It was the most giddy I have ever seen her.

Knew I could knock it out on the way back.

 

Also found some pretty horses in a pasture right beside the highway. Could've stood there all day to get an actual photo if I wasn't in a hurry to get home before dark. 

The foals were so cute!