Week 1476 and 1477

I am clearly still building this habit and need to stop delaying my weekly reflection as I don’t have a ton to reflect on for week 1476 aside from feeling the stress building for the next week with an ever-growing to do list combined with a short work week in week 1477 due to Truman and I going to the OneWorld Canine Obstacle Course.

I managed to wish my Grandma a happy birthday a week early as I don’t pay attention to the date very much and a notification came up on my phone. 

We also went to Denver and ate at Ristorante Venice (good overall but really the only reason I would go back is for the meatballs) while not realizing that there was an Aves game that was going to make driving downtown hell. I don’t mind downtown Denver but if there is traffic, it’s not worth going there. 

I had completely forgotten that we were going to dinner with everything that I was doing at work and forgot that it was a joint birthday celebration for Syd and my half-sister which meant I had to scramble to get a gift. Fortunately, Syd is awesome and got a card and treats while I went and got cash. 

On Monday of week 1477, Syd’s grandpa died which meant a change of plans and another full day of driving during the trip but we were happy to go to support her dad. The funeral was Thursday and was the first time that I got to meet all of her cousins and family on her dad’s side. 

They seemed like great people and were lovely despite the circumstances. 

The night before, we had gotten to MO from CO. It was the first time we have taken all of the animals out there and Truman immediately got to meet Syd’s childhood horse. They both did great. Ellie was… a bit too excited and we opted to keep her on the leash and went on a walk to let everybody settle down. 

We also forgot their dog food in CO so I had to drive to the neighboring town to get some before they closed. 

Syd’s parents had crates in the garage for the dogs (we normally keep them inside and they are both laying against me as I type this from bed) and I was a bit nervous but they did well… Until I came out to Ellie wandering around the garage as she had busted through hers. 

This on top of some things at work had me highly stressed out. 

I put the dogs in my car as it was nice and cool outside and I knew they would do well there. 

The big problem was that I was going to have to figure out what to do with them for the 10-12 hours we were going to be gone. The only logical solution was for me to drive them separately the next day. I couldn’t stop stressing about it and asked Syd if she could talk through it with me and she was happy to. 

I really appreciated this as I was spiraling and she gave a couple of good ideas. 

Ultimately, I drove with the dogs to the funeral but she really helped me feel like I was making the logical decision. 

Leaving the dogs in the car during the day has historically stressed me out. With it being October it was pretty cool so I didn’t have to leave the car on and just cracked the windows. After the longest, most uninteresting sermon in American history, we came outside to a much warmer day and I about shit myself as I knew it was going to be way too hot in the car. 

The dogs were panting their asses off but both managed to avoid heat stroke and ended up providing some good reprieve to everybody that attended the funeral. 

I didn’t turn the car off at all during the day for the rest of the trip (and won’t in the future, regardless of weather). 

Truman and I drove to Birmingham on Friday after a late start to the day and didn’t get in until Friday night. Since there were a lot of variables going into this, I didn’t book a hotel and spent a couple hours trying to find one that wasn’t sold out and allowed pets. 

We stayed at a La Quinta that seemed… rough… but it meant not sleeping in the car. 

There were renovations happening that we weren’t informed about and we were greeted by a dead cockroach floating in the toilet (that Truman drank out of before I saw said cockroach. Truman proceeded to growl and bark at every noise so we only got about 5 hours of sleep. 

I had booked the room for 2 nights but we checked out that morning and went to the race. 

The race was fun and people were nice. I met the Devonte, who runs the runningwithkerby instagram account along with a guy, Taylor, and his mom, Jackie, who played football at CSU-P shortly after me. 

I chatted with all of them for a long time and Taylor and Jackie even waited to watch me go after they finished their race to see if Tru and I could cross the log (we did).

I chatted the ears off of a lot of people and learned that Truman is not the biggest fan of water (the shower excluded). 

The best part was going through the school bus which had some Halloween decorations that Truman stared at for a solid 10 seconds. 

I carried him over a lot of obstacles and we went around all of the tunnels and pretty much anything that he had to climb under. 

We left pretty quickly after our race and drove straight back to MO where I slept in the car for an hour as my phone call didn’t wake up Syd. 

It was glorious getting some sleep the next day along with not having to drive anywhere. 

We closed out the day with some wagyu steaks and conversation with our parents (along with an ass-whooping at a game of spades) before we headed back the next morning. 

Podcast: Mark Bell’s Power Project

Food: Ristorante Venice (fine but would go and try their meatball appetizer), Wagyu steak marinated for a few days with creamed corn (10/10 would eat again), Garbo’s (would only go for the salad, Bojangles (chicken was good, biscuit and fries weren’t worth the calories), Chipotle (induced two stops along an hour drive, one at which was at a gas station that I had the joy of having to hold the stall door shut in the most disgusting bathroom I’ve been in in a hot minute-do better, Circle K), Cracker Barrel (who doesn’t like french toast with warm syrup?), City Bowls (genuinely tasty but couldn’t enjoy the matcha due to Chipotle and it battling it out in my stomach), Braums (breakfast burritos catered to the white palate - there were tomatoes, onions and no salsa, chile, queso.. 10/10 would not try their burritos again).

Discovery: QuikTrip is the best gas station by far.

According to Google, this trip was about 2800 miles (it was more according to my odometer but whatever). I often think about how long travel would have taken by horse-drawn carriage and how fortunate we are to be able to travel at the speeds we can now. 

Curiosity got the best of me and I asked ChatGPT how long this would have taken. Depending on speed and time spent resting, our 6 day trip would have shaved about 2-5 months of our lives.