I was anxious enough that I didn’t sleep well, eventually waking up a couple hours earlier than I wanted to after a short night’s sleep.
Gratefully, I was able to get myself going enough to get done the things that needed to be done prior to driving up to Kansas City.
One of the bonuses about finally getting myself going is that I’m able to get things done that need to be gotten done.
I was able to communicate with my brother-in-law and get my business phone line canceled, which used to be my personal line. Now I just have the number that I got last year or the year before.
I was able to get the physical therapy fee that I paid refunded so that it could be rebuilt at the full price, so that I could get it submitted to insurance. Manage to get myself to go through the annoying process of submitting it to my insurance.
So that’s another irritating/stressful item on my to-do list crossed off. 🥳
Found a multi-city trip for my mom from Arkansas to Arizona to Utah and back to Arkansas for $277 round trip!!!
Crazy! Amazing price. 🥳
I checked plane ticket prices to New Zealand again, and they’ve gone up $1,300 in the last week or so. They were 780ish round trip last week, and now they’re around $2,000 for the cheapest.
Oh well. I don’t think New Zealand is on my 2025 docket. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll be doing a genealogy road trip with my mom in April/May , and then there’s probably a pretty good chance will do the Great Western road trip for the third year in a row this fall.
We’ll see.
I wasn’t really able to get much of any work done today. On the drive to Kansas City, I tried to do some work, but there really wasn’t much available. It’s hard enough to get questions during the regular day on a computer, and even harder on my phone , and I decided not to bring my computer on this trip because I already felt like I had too much stuff packed.
Anyway, so not much success in the working department today, but I also didn’t pay for internet access on the plane like I had planned to. I was going to work during the plane flight, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.
Haven’t done much working since losing all that money trading.
Peripheral consequences that have me losing even more money because of the emotional destruction.
It’s sort of mind-blowing to me how far I’ve slid in my mental health. I think it’s been like 14 or 15 years? Since the last time I was just carefree happy.
I don’t know for sure. I’m probably forgetting stuff.
Watched Castle most of the first leg of the trip from Kansas City to Seattle, and watched more of it while waiting in the Seattle airport.
Had flashbacks to my New Zealand trip… Or maybe flashbacks to my China trip?
I went down a staircase in the airport that I remember from a recent trip, but I can’t remember which trip it was.
I guess I’m pretty lucky that I’ve been on so many trips that I can’t remember which is which.
The second flight was a good bit more of a challenge, physically. My legs didn’t have really any room at all, so they stayed in the same cramped position for pretty much the whole flight from Seattle to Fairbanks, which got super uncomfortable.
Tried to nap because I’m low on sleep, but I wasn’t very successful. Hard to nap with large people on either side.
I felt small today. 🙃
On both legs of my trip, I had really tall people on both sides of me. On my first leg, there was probably an 80 something old man to my left who was probably well over 6 ft tall. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was like 6’4 or 6’5 or something like that. And the woman sitting to my right, I think she was probably like 6’2 or something. I’m just guessing with both of them, but both of them seem to be a fair bit taller than I am.
Same thing on my second leg of the trip, two tall, larger men.
I watched the first launch of the new Glenn rocket from Blue origin. Though honestly, I’m much more of a fan of Elon musk than I am of. Jeff bezos, anything space related is fun. And the more competition, the better, as that will spur innovation.
I know I mentioned it in my other post, but I’m so grateful that I was able to get the refund from the one auto rental company that was booked through Priceline. It was pretty much painless going through Alamo, and amazingly, it turned out to be like $12 cheaper.
I’ll take it! 🙂
After taking a bunch of pictures of exterior damage to the vehicle, and emailing those pictures to the lady who was behind the counter, I headed to my hotel, getting there somewhere around midnight.
I got myself checked in. The hotel is basically a glorified house that’s been converted into a kind of hotelish thing. Not what I was hoping for, but it’ll work just fine.
Chatted with the owner, or at least I’m guessing the owner. He suggested that I might think about taking a drive up into the hills to see if I could catch the Aurora Borealis.
Too much light pollution down in Fairbanks to really get a good view.
So I headed Up into the hills, about a 40ish minute drive. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the Aurora Borealis, and on the way up, with the snow fairly deep on the sides, and only one set of tracks through the snow on the road, I managed to get myself stuck when two of us tried to go by the same skinny part of the road.
I spent probably a half hour trying to dig myself out in super duper cold weather, with wet hands freezing.
Gratefully, the vehicle was running and warm and able to warm me up as I alternated from popsicle to thawed out chicken breast. 🙃
But it was no use. I probably could have dug for hours and never gotten out because I was high centered, well at the same time dug in.
Gratefully, though, I had probably five cars past me without stopping to help, somewhere around 1:15 a.m., I think, a couple of SUVs passed by me, pulled over, and a bunch of 20 somethings pulled out and managed to push me back onto the hard packed snow.
🥳🙏🥳🙏🥳
I’m very grateful for that.
Very grateful for that.
I was starting to think that I might end up spending the night up there with the car on all night to stay warm. I had a full tank, but phone reception was not reliable, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
So, thank you, to you wonderful angels who pushed me out. 🙏
I just got back to the hotel/inn thing. It’s -12° according to the vehicle exterior thermometer , so I’ve got to go plug in the block heater before I head in the house.
It’s crazy. It’s so cold that the engine can’t warm up to operating temperature, and the heater keeps me warm enough, but definitely not warm.
Welcome to Alaska, Stephen.
Love and hugs.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 