The L word and other GRAND things

Hoping this blog posts... trying it on a new device... power has been out at my house off and on for the past 48 hours also... so we will see when this gets posted.

I was out with my family Friday night for my mom's birthday- took her to Olive Garden and Costco. Lots of fun chatting about my pronunciation of certain words, as well as my mom's. I bought my mom what was a $450 suit at SteinMart for around $60 on clearance. I didn't know anything about it other than it was a black and white, and in a color she would wear. I didn't know it was a super high end brand name in women's fashion that makes really tailored looking suits. My mom loved it.

Saturday morning
- Mike texted me about 9. I woke up at 8:55. I was exhausted.
- He was out and about getting a haircut.
- I told him we would meet about 11.
- I get to his house at 11 as he is cutting the grass. I watch him do that and occasionally move the trash can over to where he was so he could dump grass in it.
- As we go in the house there is a big gift on the island in the kitchen. It is in a black and gray striped bag with tissue paper and he tells me to open it as it is only part of my graduation gift, and this is something he cannot live without. Someone bought him one and he became obsessed. I open it up and see the same type of electric toothbrush he has. He is so picky about that thing. He is obsessed with it. It goes everywhere when we travel. He lost one a few weeks back as you may recall, and that caused a panic. I laughed and thanked him. He told me to take it with us this weekend. I read the card, which was so sweet too, and made me want to cry.
- Mike tells me we need to go somewhere and to pick. He mentioned San Diego several times, but they wanted too many free hotel reward nights. I tell him I like the idea of Visalia (anyone know what's up there?). I throw out Phoenix, The Grand Canyon, San Diego.
- Suddenly we're looking at how long it takes to get to the Grand Canyon, where to stay, how to get there, and he's booking a rental car, and we are off.
- We go down to the airport to get a Hyundai Sonata since we wanted something that was good on gas and a Cobalt just didn't cut it.
- He was convinced this car would make me consider Hyundai a viable carmaker. I was impressed. I would never buy one because who wants to say you drive a Hyundai? But features wise... XM radio standard, 35mph on the Sonata, very comfortable
- We start our trek out to Arizona and he books a cheap points hotel in Prescott, Arizona.
- We take the 10 to the 60 to the 71 to the 89 to get there.
- Lots of windy and back country roads that no one goes down. Every shop we drove past was closed. This gave us a chance to make up on time. Mike sped down these roads. At one point we were doing 120mph down some of the roads. And don't get me started on those mountainous roads. I was scared to death. He drives those fast. It helped it was a 2 lane in each direction road in one case, but he was doing about 45-60 when the signs said 30. Thank goodness we were the only ones on the road. He told me to keep my eyes on the white line in the middle of the road and I wouldn't get so dizzy. LOL.
- Listening to XM was enjoyable and here's some new jams you should be listening to:

- We get to the hotel about 7. We left at 2, so we made great time.
- Lots of talk about my mom's birthday and cousin's visit last week. I told him about the suit I got my mom and he was impressed.
We hear interesting stuff on XM like this, which apparently Mike knew all about, but I didn't...

- The hotel was VERY nice, especially with how little in points it cost. It had a couch, a granite wet bar, big bathroom, big king bed, and a 20'' tv or so. I love going to hotels with Mike and being treated like a VIP. We always get water bottles and cookies/treat bags when we come in.
- We go to the room, admire, then go to The Raven, which was an organic bar/restaurant. I had the club sandwich, which was perfect, and not toasted too much. The restaurant specialized in small name beers, which was cool. I tried an Emily ____something_____ from Colorado. The food was great. It was all organic as I said.
- Mike admired the interesting crowd at the restaurant. You had the Rastafarian guys, the young hip, a bunch of older people, and some burly looking men, and bikers. Mike kept saying CREEPY! I laughed. I said I figured this town was probably one of those progressive ones and it had a cute old charm with lots of mom and pop restaurants.
- We head out and check out the rest of the town. Lots of bikers, which was scary, and so not our type of people... lol
- We go in search of dessert. Ice cream shops were closed.
- We go to Target, which was like an early 90s Target. They still had the signs I remember from when I was a kid. Mike thought it was a time warp. I did too. I lamented about how this is what Target looked like when I was a kid. The setup was the same, they even had the Food Avenue, same signs, and so it was fun. He was disappointed there was no clearance section at the end of the aisles.
- We cruise across the street to Wal-Mart. It is a Supercenter. We get individual cake slices and a bottle of pino griggio for dessert.
- Drive around town just to see what there was.... drive around the mall... Costco... 1 McDonalds... no movie theater... lots of mom and pop stores/restaurants... Lowes and Home Depot... the town is definitely liveable. We google the average temp and guessed it was probably people trying to escape Phoenix heat that may have a house and flock there. There were tons of people and the hotels were full, though.
- We go back to the hotel where we watch some movie that was on TV with Jennifer Aniston
- Took showers
- The wine is pouring, we're enjoying cake, and I'm feeling the buzz. He is too. We go to bed and we can't keep our hands off each other, so of course we fool around lots. I wanted to say the L word, but it wasn't the right time after the buzz. I didn't want it to seem like it was just alcohol talking.
- After we drifted off to sleep Mike gets up and goes to the bathroom. He gets a cup I hear and then is downing tons of water. He has excruciating heartburn. In my tired and buzzed state I laid up in bed and rubbed his arm and back while he tried to sleep. He didn't sleep well.
- Bed about 12:30


SUNDAY
- Up at 9
- Mike had me turn over- he didn't say anything- but he indicated through his actions that he wanted me to turn over- and we had a role reversal as he tried to fuck me... he didn't penetrate... just slid his dick between my legs... it was hot, though, as we both ended up in some crazy position making out
- Shower and cinnamon rolls from the hotel for breakfast... the cinnamon rolls were truly bomb!
- We drove downtown to see what there was and the western art/craft show that was going on. There were so many people and so many diverse peoople- old, Indian, young, hip, trendy, dog people, you name it. We walked in several trinket shops.
- We go to the mall for pizza and Orange Julius. I get a little grief for not getting an Orange Julius and getting the strawberry banana. The pizza guy at the mall was a Mexican guy who was so animated in trying to sell us the pizza. It was cool. The eating area had carpet, which was a surprise.
- We check out wikipedia to learn about the town and the Prescott College has a Rastafarian/progressive population and that explained the strange mix of people we saw. The town has 100k-200k people. Walk around and do some more exploring. Check out Realtor.com... one of our favorite things to do
- IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WINDY!!! We wondered if this was normal...
- Drive toward The Grand Canyon. Stop for gas. After we do a box gets stuck under the car that was flying in the wind. I get out to try and remove it, but it was on Mike's side, so he moves the car so he wouldn't be in danger as he got out on his knees and got under it.
- Mike was annoyed he couldn't do 80+ with all these slow drivers. Different scene than the day prior where there was no traffic and no idiots in our way.
- XM started to repeat songs... I don't like the hits station
- Stop at the hotel for the night about 2pm. We stay at the Grand Canyon Hotel in Williams, Az, which was still 50 miles from the Grand Canyon, but the internet made it sound like YOU could only stay there.
- Hotel was nowhere near as nice as the night prior, but was ok
- Relax on the bed and check out yelp - we decide to go to Bedrock
- Bedrock, as in the Flinstones, a Flinstone amusement park about 50 miles away near the Grand Canyon. Well, originally Yelp said it was down the street from the hotel. The reviews said tacky and rundown, but others said nostalgic.
- Mike was iffy and said he would only go in if other people did. Being the adventurer I am, I said I would. We go in and I see the look of "like really?" on his face. I suggest we go in the park and pay the $5 per head fee for the 2 of us to go see.
We are suddenly in Bedrock with a bunch of other people visiting Fred and Barney's houses. It was super windy. Super tacky at some points, but amusing, and well, it was a good photo op. Lots of cute pics of us riding in the cars, hanging out by the houses, on top of Dino

- We were now curious to see how far Grand Canyon was... maybe 20 minutes away.
- We decide to pay the $25 per car fee to drive in to the park. OMG. WE ARE SO GLAD WE DID.
- We did the desert trail tour. We start driving and off to the left OH WOW WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW IT WAS THE GRAND CANYON. IT WAS AMAZING. I was looking at the map and oblivious, but the hush in the car was an indicator of the magnitude of what we just saw.
- We get out and are disappointed I don't have my camera.
- We take photos on our iPhones and stand around admiring
- We stop at each lookout point on the drive and admire.
- This was sooooooooooooooooo worth it and we were glad the Flinstones lead us to this.
- Stop at a hotel just outside of the Grand Canyon for food. The food and service were awful. The service we noticed first as it took 10 minutes to be acknowledged in the bar. We just ordered Coronas y nachos and decided we would eat elsewhere. The bartender also had an attitude with us and we are the 2 most nonconfrontational guys.
- Drive back to hotel in Williams, Az
- Eat at Pizza Hut Buffet... it wasn't good... we weren't hungry. We talked about iPad use in the classroom/laptops
- We go over to Safeway for dessert. We choose chardonnay and cream puffs, plus get water and snack bars for the train trip to Grand Canyon
- Back at the hotel we discover the awful Edge Network from AT&T is all around and can't play a Netflix movie. The hotel's wireless internet was $9.95 and Mike had me bill it to his credit card unsuccesfully. His card was declined many times, which it shouldn't have been. Finally my Virgin Mobile MyFi card saved the day. I pulled it out, logged onto their website, and paid my $40 for unlimited streaming.
- We watch a mid 90s show called "Working Girl" with an all star cast.
- Mike was very tired and falling asleep throughout. We laid on the bed against each other
- Bed about 11


MONDAY
- Up at 7:30 to make the train. Mike woke up about 40 minutes prior feeling super dehydrated and sweating. I just laid in bed.
- Stop at McDonalds for breakfast and I tell him all about what I learned from my cousin
- We go to the train, watch the shootout they had before boarding, then board
- We are around an Israeli and 2 black girls
- I joked with Mike about how we were going to see black people because Oprah went to Yosemite... and we did see a few black people
- There were performers as we went up who sang songs like

- Mike and I sang along to the ones we knew like that, which I was totally impressed he knew it.
- We use my Virgin Mobile MyFi for his iPad as we are on the train to look at vacation options for my graduation trip
- We also play Scrabble and he beats me... occasionally he questions if I know what some of the words mean that I came up with and I didn't! lol
- In Grand Canyon we go for Bloody Mary's at the bar at the El Tovar overlooking the canyon. It was my first bloody mary. Mike said it was great. I thought it was eh.
- We walk down into the canyon some, but Mike's leg and mine started to hurt.
- I didn't complain, but he's not the outdoor type, so he didn't want to hike, so we didn't.
- We go back and this time have lunch, vegetarian chili. We ate out on the patio and it was about 60 degrees, but colder with the wind blowing
- We go inside to the bar where he has a baileys coffee and I have a water. I have a peanut butter chocolate pie dessert deal and he has cheesecake. It was so-so. It left the worst aftertaste and I had it in my mouth until 10pm last night!
- We look more at vacations on his iPad
- Much more leisurely enjoy the view day at Grand Canyon
- The train ride back was fun, train robbers, talking about vacation options
- We get back to the car and start the drive home
- We tried to stop at Subway, but had to wait nearly 80 miles for one
- We cruise home on the 40
- We stop at Subway and I wasn't hungry- he ordered a sandwich for us and I told him at most I'd have a bite or two. I did, about 10pm
- We are tickling and holding each other, and there were a couple times he poked me, I'd laugh, then he'd giggle, and he'd say "sorry," and I could have so easily said "I love you too," but the words couldn't come out. I was so nervous and worried he wouldn't say the same thing, which was ridiculous.
- We talked a lot about my best friend because he texted me as we were on the train up saying that he was no longer single and engaged. I told him about coming out to my best friend since he asked, he asked about his job as a pilot, and his history with women. I told him things like the first time my friend called me to tell me he had sex or when he got gonorrhea. I informed Mike about gonorrhea and the symptoms of various STDs.
- We get back to his house about 11- the navigation system kept saying it would be 12:30, but there was some error in it and finally we got it straightened out. We avoided all the holiday traffic on the Cajon Pass.
- We watched Real Housewives of New Jersey since OC didn't record on his Tivo and I am DEVASTATED.
- We went to bed about 12:30

TUESDAY
- Up at 5:15 when Mike uses the restroom, he comes back and is grinding up against me and starts to slide down my undies... action time!
- We both cum on his chest and fall back asleep until 7:30
- We get up and shower
- He handles stuff for work and I search more vacation options
- He suggests we take the car back to the rental car agency, so we do that
- We stop at Farmer Boys where I had a kids meal cheeseburger and get a little heat for that. It was the perfect sized meal- A Mike sized portion
- We talk about Linda and my parent's plans for the summer
- We stop at Home Depot because he needed to have keys made as we had to practically break into the house since he didn't have his garage door opener last night. He makes 3 keys and gives me one... woo! I felt special.
- I head out about 1pm
- I go over to give him a hug and we kiss/hug. I had taken an anxiety pill earlier and the words were able to flow much more easily. I said "I love you," and he said "you too."
- We go out to the car and there is such a happy vibe in the air as he is wishing me well
- I text Gonzo I had the courage to say it and drive home
- I get a text from Mike as I am down at the bottom of his street saying "FYI I love you too :-)"
- Now I'm home and we have no electricity... using the neighbor's wireless... family is trying to arrange furniture as my mom's birthday gift of bookcases and couches came in. I'm staying out of the mess and will just say whether I like it or don't like it later. lol