Steppesister
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- Dec 27, 2013
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The ABCs of A Trip Worth Waiting For
Chapter 1, A is for: All Set! Err…. Just Kidding!
Life can be an interesting highway at times, can’t it? (Do you wanna ride it all night long?) One day you might find yourself coasting along planning the perfect Disney trip, and the next day you get a phone call. I don’t mean the good kind of phone call either. You know, the one that you should have picked up in the night, but didn’t because your ringer was turned off?
Allow me, Dear Reader, to tell you a tale of a trip that was full of surprises, full of heartache, drama, smiles, tears, laughter and reminiscing. Won’t you join me now on an adventure in this little corner of my world? It will require me to add a little background for those who may be new to the World of Steppe. For those of you who have stuck with me for a while now, perhaps a small refresher on how this trip came to be will be helpful. To ALL of you who care to join, as always, this playground is yours for the taking. I live for the chatter on my threads! The more who participate, the more fun we will all have. Never be too shy to post your comments, your opinions, and your own photos to share. We even put up with Dad Jokes. Don’t let the occasional dip into the mildly inappropriate scare you off. Sometimes we, well those of us regulars, can get a bit “off track” at times.
Sorry Folks, no Contest this time. I’m simply too busy with work and other commitments (and am about to get busier as I begin Ground School in my quest to become a private pilot), and my other Contest and thread (found down there VV):
THE ABCs of a Nursing School Graduation Trip
are taking way too much of my time.
I also apologize for the lack of photos in this chapter, but I absolutely promise you will have more than you ever bargained for as this TR progresses. Just not a lot to share in an introduction.
Let me first introduce myself to those who may not know me. My real name is Liesa (pronounced just Lisa) and I live in Salem, Oregon.
(In case you are wondering, that is what 36 hours of no sleep looks like.)
I’m really old (actually have a Round Birthday coming up in May!!), and am an RN who works in an Ambulatory Surgical Center in the Recovery Room. I’m a baby nurse still, having only graduated from Nursing School less than a year ago. I LOVE IT!
I’m married to a Disney-hater and have 5 “kids” ranging from 14-27 and I love to travel, cook, dabble in photography, and find new adventures. Of course, I wouldn’t be “here” if I didn’t adore Disney trips as well. I lived for almost a decade in Crapistan in Central Asia (hence my screen name) with my family having returned Stateside in 2010. That was one of my more challenging adventures. One of my more fun ones was working as a CM in Disneyland in 1986 as a hostess in the Blue Bayou Restaurant.
So, how did this trip find its conception? A few years ago, I started to have a few nostalgic stirrings work their way into my heart. About once a decade I find myself yearning to re-visit my roots and re-discover a bit of the place that played a role in shaping who I am today. I have found in the past that “going home” can be in many ways cathartic. It can also be heartbreaking and hard when you find that you “just can’t go home”. So, with the seeds of a longing to visit my old ‘hood firmly planted, I began to wait for that Golden Opportunity. Last Fall, it came. A few DISsers started talking about a Meet in SoCal, and I immediately knew this was my time to make that pilgrimage to the Motherland. It would be a trip with a twofold agenda: visit the family I have left who still live in the Inland Empire (Hemet, to be exact) and to visit the earthly place that still holds perhaps the most precious place in my heart- DLR.
Sparing you of the details of our planning, suffice to say, the little group of us: @pkondz, Fran, and @franandaj (Alison) came up with a very nice sounding agenda. Being that it was pkondz’s daughter’s birthday trip, I was mostly along for the ride, and was amiable to whatever touring they’d want me along on, and, when they needed to strike out on their own, I planned to do my own thing. I’m very comfortable hanging out with just little ol’ me, and, as you’ll see, I did a fair amount of that. But that’s a LONG way from where we are now in this trip report. Just setting the stage a bit for you.
Now, with a BFP (Big Fat Plan) penciled in (never, EVER pen in your plan!) I waited. And waited and waited. Waiting for a Disney trip takes almost as long as waiting for your laptop to be returned when it’s being serviced. In case, you’ve never had the joy of that, it feels like approximately 14 years. Please don’t ask me how I know. Still too fresh. But yes, the week of our trip did finally arrive. Time off from work was secured, the bags were starting to get packed (kind of), the house was given a preliminary cleaning (because the family needs a visual of what you’d like it to look like when you return, but never does), and the bills were paid (because if the power is off, they can’t cook the Kraft Mac n Cheese they’ll resort to because cooking the chicken you bought is “way too hard”).
That’s about when it happened.
The Phone Call.
“Mom’s in the ED. She threw a PE, but we think she’s stable”
Let me explain, she’d had a knee replacement about a week before, and was actually doing pretty well. She’d already achieved great mobility and range of motion in the in-patient rehab place and was already home by then. But, one of the more common complications of ortho surgery is blood clots. She developed one (and had even visited the ED a couple days before this, but they misdiagnosed it!) and a piece broke off and traveled to her lung. Nice.
There was no way I could just NOT go see my Mama. PEs (Pulmonary Embolisms) kill people. Yes, she was stable, but she still had the clot. How long would she be stable? It was time for me to travel there on short notice and do what I could to help out. Where is “there” you ask? Bowling Green, Kentucky- the opposite direction of California. No worries. If I got on a flight the next morning (I did) and visited my folks for a week, I’d still be able to make the SoCal trip. Yes, I spent 2 hours on the phone re-arranging flights. Yes, I got it all worked out that I’d fly the next morning to Nashville, then a week later fly to LAX, then fly home after the trip. Seemed like a good plan…. $650 more expensive, but my Mama’s worth that and a whole lot more!
Which brings me to March 21st. Exactly 1 day after getting that call, 2 hours of on hold and talking with Southwest Airlines, 3 hours of whirlwind packing, numerous calls and texts with my DISMeeters, hasty goodbyes to my family (some didn’t even get that!), and a change in my Park and Fly Dump. But more on that in the next chapter. Stay tuned for:
B is for: Because it Couldn’t Possibly Get Much Worse.
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