Break, Road Trip and New Years.

Break...

It was soooo nice and yet over so soon, my 2 week winter break was all too short. Unfortunately before break had barely begun I got some sad news regarding a family member and spent a few days visiting in the hospital. But my family is a tough bunch and we don't go out without a fight, so decisions were made and the fight has kicked into high gear! I love my family and I'm very glad they are such good and wonderful people it makes it soo easy to love them more and more every day. I did manage to cram time with lot's of friends and family into Christmas festivities but the whole week just left me feeling like I needed more time just to take a break from break! I think it felt even shorter because 1/2 way into it I left for my next rotation. Yes my boyfriend Ryan (aka Billy ) helped me load up my nimble little versa for a 3 day road trip to Texas. Ry has a friend from his Army days who lives in San Antonio so we decided it would be fun to come down early and visit.

The Road Trip was loooong we drove from 3pm to 9am non-stop before getting some breakfast at Denny's and taking a 2 hour cat nap in the parking lot. The pass between La Grande OR and Where ever ID with snow and ice and big semi truck was not fun! I was so happy Ry was with me and even happier when he took over driving in that crap! After we crossed over into Utah it got pretty boring until we drove into Salt Lake City but at 3am we couldn't see any of the landscape or the city itself, what we did see was several cops riding our bumper. I'm assuming it was because they could sense we weren't Mormon ;) We drove past Archs National Park, but by then I was so delirious that when Ry woke me from a half sleep I couldn't get the words out to ask him to stop so we could go see the famous giant rock arch. Later after our nap, when I was more coherent I got to drag him to Four Corners ( AZ, NM, CO and UT). Not much to see there but worth the 6$ for me and Ry to take a few pics get a snack and use the porta-john. Roswell NM on the other hand was not worth it. I can't tell you how jazzed I was to roll into a dusty small SW town filled with Alien themed everything.... which is what I had imagined. What we found was Walmart, Applebee's, 4 Sonic's and less than a block of Alien nick/nack shops..... what a disappointment. The most amazing thing about the drive through Texas..... I only got pulled over once, and I even though I was going around 90 in a 65 (at night) I only got a warning :)

San Antonio was great! Ryan's friends David and Anita are amazing, Anita was off work the entire time we were there and insisted on cooking for us, which was really sweet of her and delicious. They took us to a Brazilian restaurant of meat on New Years Eve (sooo delicious I'm kinda drooling just thinking about it) and then went back to their house to play games and light off fireworks at midnight. Oh yeah and I don't think anythings illegal in Texas (haha) the boys got big mortar fireworks like in professional displays, it was like being in downtown Portland, only this was just random suburb neighborhood. It was one of the best New Years Eves I had, good friends, good food lot's of fun and spectacular firework show.