The looooooong trip home...

I know I know. I'm a bit behind on catching up on the happenings in our lives over the past 2 months. It's pretty difficult to sit down in front of the computer for extended periods of time with Kara during the day so I just wait until she's asleep to start playing catch up on all my to-do lists, which is neverending.

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So let's go back. Way back. To March 5th, 2009...

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Black ice. Slide. Semi truck. Crash. Snow. Tow truck. Hotel room. Phone calls. Insurance.

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And then we made a decision. A bad decision. A decision that would test what we were made of...

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TO RIDE A GREYHOUND BUS BACK TO IOWA!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO.....

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Since we were in Podunkville, Oregon (a.k.a. Pendleton), heaven forbid that there is more than 1 car rental place within 200 miles. The short of it all was that renting a car one way to Iowa would have ended up costing us about $1,000 and then add gas on top of that and our insurance would only cover $30 per day towards the rental so that's one huge bill we're stuck with. Then we looked into Greyhound (*shudder*) and they only ended up being $400 for both Honig and I total. So we bought our tickets and got a ride to the "bus station" HA!, and Honig's Mom decided that she would ride as far as Boise with us and then have her nephew pick her up and she would fly back to AZ since her wrist and rib were hurting her. It turns out that she sprained her wrist and broke a rib. Ouchie! I don't blame her for wanting to get home ASAP and rest up.

Anyways, here's a little picture tutorial, but they're mainly of Kara, since she's what kept us going and sane.

Packing all of our stuff in our hotel room. We had to condense a whole carload of stuff down to a couple of bags and suitcases. We ended up having to leave some stuff in the hotel room because there was no way we could physically take it all.

The Greyhound "bus station." That's right, I said bus station. A Rubbermaid shed with splinter ridden benches in a greasy fast food drive-through-only parking lot.

Nothing says class like nursing a 9 week old baby in a shed.


Mom looking in making sure that I am ok. We laughed so hard at the bus stop.


Still feeding away and Honig stressing over how to move all of our bags.


Our lovely accomodations.


So once we got on, we rode to Boise and Honig's Mom abandoned ship, and we really wish we would have with her.... Oh well, the lessons we learn.
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So we ride through the night with every chain smoker in the USA, and we had to make stops every hour so everyone could get off and smoke and then come back in and see if they could "endure" another hour until their next smoke break. I can't believe what kind of a hold cigarettes have on people. It's really sad.
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We got to Salt Lake City in the early early hours of Saturday and Honig's sister, Amber, met us there because she was dying to meet Kara. So she and her boyfriend Dave hung out with us in the terminal while we waited for our next bus and Amber got to snuggle and love Kara. Plus it was nice that Honig and I got to see her and visit because it'd been quite a while since we'd seen her.


Aunt Amber holding a sleepy Kara Faith.

Family photo!

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Once we left Salt Lake, it was on to Denver. There is only one picture to accurately portray our trip from Denver...

That's right, we were seated next to a bona fide pimp, nasty perm and all. He was sportin the pimp cane, pimp hat with a white hat he would put right over his black hat, his pimp mink coat, and his pimp weed. He was not ashamed to say that he was selling weed and was trying to make a couple deals on the bus. I discreetly took this picture with my phone but I probably could have shoved my digital camera right in his face with the flash on and taken a picture and he would have never noticed because he was so far baked. He only had a vocabulary of about 20 words and 14 of them were swear words. At one point he put a cigarette in his mouth and went to go into the bathroom (which we happened to be sitting right in front of) and a guy told him he can't smoke in there and the pimp said that he couldn't wait to smoke and then the guy told him that he would tell the bus driver if he did and blah blah blah. Finally the pimp sat down, swore some more, and then passed out.
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Salt of the earth I tell ya.
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Since people on Greyhounds apparently have no control over the volume of their voice, we heard some memorable comments which I took the liberty of jotting down as I heard them in my puzzle book Honig bought me. Some of my personal favorites are:

• "I been a playa all my life."
• "I ain't gonna fornicate like dat."
• "Dey ran down to da courthouse and got hitched."
• "I couldn't bring myself to do it with a fat girl."
• And then a woman listening said "HEY! Fat girls need lovin' too!"
• THERE AIN'T NO HEALTH IN A PANCAKE!!! A PANCAKE GOES STRAIGHT TO YOUR BUTT!!!!" (but they didn't say 'butt' they said the naught word for a donkey)
• "That's the first car I ever stole."
• "Maybe I'll have to stab someone in the back." and they meant that literally.

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After listening to brilliant coversations like the aforementioned ones, I finally just shoved a hypodermic needle I found on the floor of the bus into my ears and punctured my eardrums over and over so that I wouldn't have to listen to the molten idiocy that was being spewed all over the inside of the bus.

But this little sweet face is all that got us through our trip. She only had 1 meltdown and cried for an hour straight, but it was during the movie Blades of Glory so that was fine and it was warranted.

"Mommy, why you gotsta take me on da bus wit da scum of da earth? I ain't cool wit dat."

Trust me, his smile was totally forced for the camera. There was no happiness from either of us at this point. We were just dying to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere. The bus ride was so bad and the people on the bus were so scummy that we looked into it at one point. I even had one melt down and bawled because I hated it so badly.

Forced smiles.

WE LOVE HER!

And how sweet is that smile!

Miss Chunka Smiley Cheeks. I'll eat them right off her face.

Is that not the cutest thing you have ever seen?!?!

Miss Buns was SOOOO good and slept the entire night on both nights. Thank heavens.

Sweet little smiley. She melts my heart.

"Hmmm, there doesn't seem to be very much intelligence on this bus except from my Mommy and Daddy."

"Is this eternal ride to Hades over yet Daddy?"

Must....not....kill.....everybody....

My sweepy girl.

Happy little girl. I'm so thankful babies are so innocent and have no long term memory because if she did, I would be putting her in therapy to deal with this horrible bus ride.

Our Palmer baby.

That's 3 day old unwashed hair. Look at the lovely shine that it and my forehead have.

Let me just tell you why I love this man. While this was the worst trip of our lives, he was so patient and supportive and when I thought I was going to go looney because of how uncomfortable I was being around the scummy bus riders, he just kept trying to comfort me telling me that it'll be over soon and kept telling me how much he loves me and how we'll never ever do this again (darn straight) and that he'll take care of moving all our bags and that he would hold Kara so I could try to sleep and, and etc etc. He was AMAZING. There is absolutely no way I could have endured it without him.

My baby Buns.

Cuddling with her Mommy. We do love to snuggle.

"Mmmm, my hand is delicious."

She's so sweet.

Love love love her.



And another sneaky camera phone picture I snapped. This lady got on at Iowa City and apparently she thought she was my best friend. She tried chatting it up with me and I obviously didn't want to be talked to but somehow she ignored my not making eye contact with her and 2 word replies to her questions. Here's our conversation...

Lady: "What do you do?"

Chelle: "I'm a massage therapist but I'm a full time Mommy right now. What do you do?"

Lady: "I'm a dancer."

Chelle: "That's nice. What kind of dance do you do?"

Lady: "No, I'm a dancer." (she then leans forward and shimmies her boobs at me to make sure I know what kind of a dancer she is.)

Chelle: "Ohhhhh. Um, ok."

Lady: "Yeah, I'm almost 50 and I am getting too old for it. But hey, it pays the bills. I think I might go to medical transcription school."

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Kill me now.

Getting a little crazy with my baby. I'm going on maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep over the last 50 hours.

She's glowing!

My little Miss Buns.

So happy to see her Mommy.

Our cutie batootie.

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The only good this at all that came out of our trip is that Kara laughed for the very first time on it and that was memorable. I needed that.

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So folks, what did we learn from this blog?

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That's right. If you ever want a good deal on weed, go find a pimp on a Greyhound. He'll give you the best deal.