Friday September 13 through Sunday September 15, 2024
Dear Diary,
I woke up at 1:30 AM. I wrote some of my blog and attempted to fall back asleep. After I laid there an hour, I prayed my gratitudes: Good morning God, I am grateful for road trips. I am grateful for adventures. I am grateful for friends. I am grateful for family. I am grateful for love. I am grateful for sleep. I am grateful for kindness. Thank you. I love you.
I got up and packed up the last of our stuff. I woke Angel up and she got in the truck in her pajamas. I put on Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone for us to listen to on the drive. Throughout the morning I received a lot of texts from friends wishing us a good trip back to Texas. Even though I didn’t want to do the drive to Texas, I decided to enjoy it and get into adventure mode.
The sun came up at around 6:30 AM when we were going through southern Idaho. Angel fell asleep, so I turned off Harry Potter and put on a memoir by Kate Mulgrew called Born with Teeth. It’s a great book.
We crossed the Utah border and I decided to drive through Wyoming rather than go through New Mexico. I wanted some new scenery and I wanted to make a stop at Saratoga Hobo hot springs.
I stopped every couple of hours to stretch, let Bits out, use the bathroom and fill up on gas. Angel woke up after a few hours and watched movies on her DVD player. Time flew by fast by listening to the audiobooks and before I knew it, I had driven 12 hours and we turned off to go to the hot springs. I saw a lot of antelope on the highway leading to the springs. I was excited about that. It has been a while since I’ve seen antelope.
The hot springs was busy but it wasn’t overcrowded. We got in the main pool for a few minutes, then Angel wanted to go out by the river. I was all for that. The river is much preferred. I chatted with other people in the hot springs pool by the river and wrote my blog while Angel played with some girls her age. I was glad she found kids to play with. The kids had rubber duckies they would chase down the river in the cold water. They would catch the duckies and run back up to the warm water pool. It was fun watching them. The girls parents were from Wyoming but lived a couple of hours away from the hot springs. I told them about our move back to Idaho. They said they had never been to Idaho and wanted to know what the cost of living was like there. I said it was a lot more than it used to be and was probably about the same as Wyoming. They said that the price of groceries in Wyoming had gone way up. I didn’t respond about the groceries in Idaho. The produce I buy costs about the same in Idaho and Texas. I rarely pay attention to the cost because I’m going to buy it no matter what. It’s not like I’m going to switch to ramen noodles if I don’t like the price of bananas 😂. Health is wealth and switching to cheap processed food will only cause health problems which cost way more than bananas.
We stayed at the hot springs for about an hour. Angel was hungry and getting cranky and I wanted to get a few more hours of driving in before stopping for the night. I ordered Angel a burrito from a restaurant a few blocks from the hot springs and we said goodbye to people we had met. The girls Angel had been playing with gave her one of their rubber duckies and we thanked them. I stopped to pick up Angel’s burrito on our way out of town. As I walked up to the door of the restaurant, a slender gentleman who I’m guessing was in his 70’s, was walking up to the door right behind me. I opened the door and let him enter first. He thanked me and we walked in, the waitress rushed passed, carrying a tray of drinks. She assumed we were together and hollered for us to sit anywhere. I said that I had an order to pick up and the gentleman said that he was picking up an order also. The waitress hollered that she would be right with us. The man and I stood there and waited a few minutes. He lightheartedly said to me, “I wonder whose food will be ready first”. The waitress came back carrying a bag of food. She told the man that his order wasn’t quite ready and handed me the bag. I wasn’t sure how she knew who had ordered what. I took the bag and asked if it was a vegetarian burrito and she said yes. I paid her and the gentleman held the door open for me on my way out. I thanked him and with a big smile, I held up my bag of food and said, “I won” and we laughed.
Angel ate her burrito and watched a movie on her dvd player while I listened to my audiobook Born with Teeth. Google maps took us through a mountain range that I hadn’t been through before called Medicine Bow national forest. The mountains were incredibly beautiful. I was completely awestruck by their majestic beauty. I see all mountains as uniquely beautiful and these were amazing. We passed by a lake called Mirror lake and up above the lake I stopped at a lookout point at 11,000 feet. Angel was still on her DVD player and didn’t want to get out of the truck and look at the scenery. Bits and I got out and enjoyed the fantastic view. I took pictures and a video.
We continued driving and reached Fort Collins, Colorado around the time it got dark. Angel fell asleep at around 9 PM. At around 10 PM, I pulled into a Flying J truck stop in Limon, Colorado. The truck stop was lit up really bright. I drove around and around a couple of times, looking for a spot where bright lights wouldn’t be shining through the front windshield at me. Finally, I picked a spot and called it good. I put a couple of pillows and a big stuffed animal of Angels in the front windshield. Then I laid back my seat and fell asleep.
It was a restless sleep, my feet kept tingling from not getting enough circulation and there wasn’t any position I could move to other than flat on my back because the steering wheel was in the way. At 1 AM, I woke up and so did Angel. We went in the truck stop and used the bathroom. Then I started driving again. I put on Huckleberry Finn for us to listen to. I had forgotten about the word “nigger” being used so much in that book. I paused the story and explained to Angel about that word not being something we say anymore. She asked me what the word meant. I told her that was what people used to be called that had dark brown skin color but nowadays it’s used in a mean way to put people down. She said ok and I unpaused the story.
Angel stayed awake about an hour and when she fell asleep, I put Born with Teeth on for me to listen to. I drove until I got tired again, at around 4:30 AM. I pulled over in a dusty little truck stop and thankfully there were no lights shining in my front windshield. I like to sleep in the dark with the only lights being the moon and stars. I laid my seat back and fell asleep right away. I slept hard until Angel woke me up at 8:30 AM, saying she was hungry. I didn’t want to wake up, I was warm and comfortable and had been sleeping so good. I found it interesting how the same position I had uncomfortably slept in earlier was now comfortable. The mind is a fascinating thing.
We continued driving throughout the day. We drove through the Oklahoma panhandle and into Texas. It seemed like as soon as we hit Texas the temperature jumped to 99 degrees F. Somehow the weather knows where the Texas border line is. I stopped for gas in Hamilton, Texas. When I got out, the heat hit me in the face. My first thought was, “good grief, it’s hot in Texas 😂”!
About halfway through the day, I couldn’t take listening to Huckleberry Finn anymore and switched to Wish You Well by David Baldacci. I have been reading the book and I thought it would be something Angel would enjoy. I was right and we listened to it all the way home to Christopher’s. We arrived at around 7 PM and I was tired. Angel was super excited to be there. She jumped out of the truck and ran all around. Christopher was sitting in his usual spot drinking a beer. I got out and was greeted by the dogs, they were jumping all over in excitement. Bits was screeching and jumping up and down, he was so excited to see his dog family. I petted the dogs and walked over to Christopher, he was smiling and happy to see us. He helped Angel find her cat and we talked for a few minutes. I told him I was going to take a bath and go to bed. He said he knew I was probably real tired. He told me that the washing machine was empty if I needed to do laundry. I thanked him and said we did have laundry to do. Christopher unhooked the trailer from the truck and I started a bath in the outdoor bathtub. While it was filling up, I went to look at the banana hut. The porch needed cleaned off but the inside was exactly how I had left it. It looked barren and empty with most of my stuff moved out. I felt sad that I wouldn’t be living here anymore. The banana hut had been my sanctuary for many years. I sat and fully felt my sadness, then it transformed into gratitude. I felt grateful to have had such a wonderful place to live out in the woods and I felt grateful that I could come there again to whenever I came to visit.
When I came out of the banana hut, Angel was sitting on Christopher’s lap and they were laughing and talking. I went in the house and Christopher had brought in my coolers. I unloaded them and put everything on the fridge. Then I went out and got in the bath. It was nice to be bathing in my little personal outside “hot springs” that I had created. I had created the outdoor bathtub when I first moved out here because I had been missing the hot springs in Idaho. The bathtub had served us well for 5 years since Christopher never did get an indoor bathtub put in. Now that I am moving to Idaho, I can go to the real hot springs. Idaho has more natural hot springs than any other state in the country. I’ve also been talking my older sister into letting me build her a greenhouse and putting in an outdoor bathtub in it.
I took a long cool bath (it was too hot out to have a hot bath). When I got out, I asked Angel to get in. I asked her where she was sleeping and she said she wanted to sleep with Christopher. I said that was fine and said goodnight to Christopher. I let Healer and LacyJane and the cat CoCo join me in the banana hut, along with Bits of course. The dogs were excited to be in there with me. I closed up the chickens, ducks and geese and went to bed. I messaged a few people and my mom called. Then I fell asleep at around 10 PM listening to a talk by Joe Dispenza.
I woke up at 6 AM. I had slept good and I felt fully rested despite waking up several times in the night to pee and let the dogs and cat out. I thought it would take me longer to recover from 2 days of driving on very little sleep but I felt great. I laid in bed and prayed my gratitudes: Good morning God, I am grateful for safe travels. I am grateful for friends. I am grateful for audiobooks. I am grateful for Christopher. I am grateful for ducks, chickens and geese. I am grateful for dogs. I am grateful for good sleep. I am grateful for a reliable vehicle. I am grateful for this beautiful earth. Thank you. I love you. I wrote my blog for an hour or so before getting up. When I got up, I made my bed, let out the chickens, ducks and geese. Then I went in the house and greeted Christopher. Angel was still sleeping. I made tea and talked with Christopher while he made breakfast. Angel woke up and ate her breakfast. I told her to get ready for church. She said she wasn’t going to church. I said that she was and to get ready. She put on her Sunday dress that I had left in her closet for when we come here. Then she asked me to braid her hair. I braided it and not even 5 minutes later, she took it out and said that braids were not her thing. 😂
We left for church and arrived a few minutes early. I greeted people and it was good to see everyone. The message I received from the sermon was to have faith and follow the guidance I receive from Jesus Christ. After church, there was a church luncheon. We stayed and Angel had fun playing with the other kids. I enjoyed talking with people. I asked a gentleman sitting near me how he was doing and he said he was doing good other than he didn’t kill the hog he had shot at yesterday. I asked another lady how she was doing and she said that she was suffering from chronic uti’s. I assured her that if she asked God to give her the answer on how to heal, He would do it. She said, she’s knows that is the truth.
When we arrived at Christopher’s after church. I cleaned out Angel’s swimming pool and filled it up. I took pictures of a bunch of things that I want to sell and I put them on-line. By the end of the day I had sold 2 items which was fantastic. I briefly got in the pool with Angel, then sat outside by the fountain with Christopher and watched the dogs play.
I decided to go get my side-x-side from Rita and Val’s. Christopher helped me hook up the trailer and I drove over there. I pulled up and got out to get it loaded up. Tracey came out of his RV and walked over to where I was. I hadn’t heard a word from him since he had driven back from Idaho. He hadn’t responded to my last text message and had blocked me on Facebook. When I had called Rita to cancel pet/farm sitting for them, she had asked Tracey if he be willing to do it and he had said no. That surprised me because they let him live there for free and ask nothing in return, yet when something is asked of him, he’s not willing to help out. I don’t understand that. I don’t understand not wanting to help out or give back. That is one of the red flags I had received when I first started hanging out with Tracey and I had ignored it. Another one was his need for my constant attention. Another one was threatening to leave or leaving whenever he was upset with me (which was usually because I wasn’t giving him enough attention). Another one was him not being willing to be just friends. Ack…there were so many! I feeling really angry at myself right now for ignoring all the red flags I had received but the anger is part of my process and I am allowing it to be felt so it can bring me clarity on how to move forward in love. Tracey is not a bad person in anyway, I understand that I needed to experience what I experienced with him so that I could get clarity on what I truly want and remember what is important to me. I am the creator of my reality and I created what I needed at the time. I am now creating a new reality that is focused once again on following my inner guidance given by the Holy Spirit. I hadn’t been standing strong in what I knew was right. Now I’m standing strong once again.
Regardless of anything, I was not going to be unkind to Tracey. I can stand strong in my own energy and still be kind. Tracey walked over and asked for a hug and I gave him one. He didn’t mention anything about blocking me on Facebook or not texting me. He acted like we were still best buds and gave me a gift. It was in a small leather pouch. I put the gift in the truck and thanked him. I was polite but firm. He helped me put some of my stuff that I’d left there in the truck. He had put it all in a nice container for me which I appreciated. I noticed that I had left the awning pieces that go to my motorhome there. I put the side pieces in the back of the truck. Then I picked up the roller that the awning rolls up in and started to carry it to the truck. I was immediately swarmed by fire ants. They were crawling all over me. I dropped the roller and wiped the ants off. I had bites all over my arms, the ants had even gotten under my dress and I had bites on my stomach and thighs. It felt like the ants were warning me to be fully aware. Tracey walked over to where I was doing the ant dance. He went to pick up the roller and I told him that it was full of ants. He shook the ants off and carried it to the truck. It was too long to fit in the back of the truck. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get it to Idaho. I told Tracey I would get it later when I thought about how I would haul it and he carried it back to where I had gotten it from. I drove the side-x-side over to the trailer and Tracey lined up the ramps. I drove onto the trailer and strapped the side-x-side on. I thanked Tracey for his help and left.
When I got to Christopher’s. I backed the side-x-side off of the trailer and parked it. Christopher unhitched the trailer and rolled it to the side. I looked at the gift Tracey had given me and it was a smudge stick, a little Buddha and a fossil. I texted Tracey, thanking him for the gift and he responded with you’re welcome. I was surprised that I wasn’t blocked from his phone. I figured if he had blocked me on Facebook, I would be blocked from his phone too. I looked on Facebook and saw that he had unblocked me on there. But of course I was still unfriended because if you block someone it automatically unfriends them. This is the 3rd time he’s unfriended me on there. It’s all for the best though. The third time’s the charm!
I made myself a frozen banana, cacao, turmeric, wild apple/pear juice smoothie and drank it sitting by the fountain. I sang a song to Christopher that I am going to sing at the Matinee Musical Club tomorrow night, called You’re Always on My Mind. Here’s a version of it sung by Willie Nelson: https://youtu.be/R7f189Z0v0Y?si=fAo_NEop5i105azD
I thought I might cry while singing it but I didn’t. Shortly after I finished singing, we heard a thunder clap. We looked up at the sky and could see dark clouds rolling in. I got up and got the clothes in off of the line. Christopher put away things outside that he didn’t want to get wet and went inside. I cleaned off the banana hut porch as it started to rain. I got the porch nice and clean and I took a video of the rain with the sun shining at the same time.
Shortly after that, Angels older sister came and picked her up. After they left, I sat at the table and wrote my blog while Christopher ate his dinner. Then he showered and we said our good nights. I closed in the ducks, chickens and geese and went in the banana hut. LacyJane and Healer came in with Bits and myself. I wrote my blog some more, then I fell asleep at around 9 PM listening to a sleep meditation about unlocking spiritual gifts.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I appreciate you.
Love, Victoria
P.S. this blog post is inspired by the Holy Spirit.