Exhausteraded

*phew* now that we're at the end of the day I almost don't know where to start... I've been trying really hard not to just write about what we did in a day, but rather tell you the interesting highlights. I just find its so easy to fall into a running commentary, where you say that you had lunch... I mean I hope you had lunch, but unless someone exploded an egg in the microwave, what do you expect me to think about it... um congratulations on eating lunch? This one turned into a bit of an epic, I'll try and trim it down a little when I'm not so exhasteraded... promise.

We got my little brother to set us up with a rental car again, but then the closer rental place didn't have a car available, and the other place didn't have enough people to come pick us up... Enter new best friend Perce *s* we met him down on the dock checking out boats and he offered to give us a ride which was super wicked AND he drives a 4 wheel drive van... which in it's previous life it was an ambulance! It even still has the siren panel and everything! I asked, but he said he was slowly disabling them... I translated that to mean "No touchie". *grins* I hope that's the closest I ever get to riding in an ambulance *s*

We got our rental car, and set off in the direction of the camera fix-it place... with a tiny little paper map with half the street names on it from the rental place and Dad's laptop GPS combo. We went on ramps, off ramps, under, crossed over and around so many highway/freeways whatever they're called here it would have taken all of my combined luck and navigation skills to get us there with what I had to work with...

The new hotness has occasionally been displaying an 'Err' message so I wanted to get her checked out at an approved dealership blah blah blah. Got there, they took a look at her, checked the errors and said it was something to do with the aperature. Then they did a software reset and proclaimed it good to go... but to bring it back if it happens again. I'm hearing echos of "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"

Next stop Ham Radio Outlet... Oh right I forgot to mention, criticle low laptop battery warning which I know I've mentioned in a previous post here when we were trying to find my Uncles cabin. Deja vu all over again. Soooo back over, under, around the freeways in a slightly different direction... We were down to an 'In one kilometer turn left' and I knew we should be getting close, and I hadn't heard an update... so I clicked the 'tell me again' button... clicked it again... Nothin'! Flying by the seat of our pants, with an ish of a direction and street name *grins* we took the scenic route through a back parking lot, around onto a street and spotted it on the way by *before* we drove past it! Yeah us!

Ran into John the guy who helped Bob check out our rig which was pretty cool, he was picking up a few things from 'The toy store' himself *grins* Picked up some more reference material, and a couple connectors so we can use the J-pole antenna I made *proud smile* I'm such a nerd. Got directions to a Sears so we could get an inverter to run the laptop and not be lost, besides we needed an emergency backup one anyways...

Next it was over to Office Depot, where I talked Dad out of buying a printer... Yes I know it will be useful *when* we need it, but the rest of the time it'll take up space we don't have. Yes I know I take up a lot of space, I always have. No I will not get rid of some of my stuff so we have room for a printer. We also got business cards done up so people don't have to try and read my itty bitty writing on a napkin to follow the daily shenanagins ;-)

< insert picture of business cards >

So you would think that was enough adventure for one day, well no, not for us... we headed for the zoo... We were almost there and somehow ended up in an infinite GPS loop. "In 150 meters turn right"... wash, rinse, repeat. To make matters more complicated I could see where we needed to go on the GPS map so I was ignoring what the super calm voice was saying, but Dad wasn't... *and* he could also see 'Zoo' signs.

After the second loop around, he said with some frustration "I feel like I'm getting three different directions!" Are you ready for this? I didn't say "Well just listen to me cause I'm giving you the right ones." *tongue out* In a voice that was almost as calm as the GPS chick told him to ignore the GPS and just turn right on Robinson... no not this one, this isn't Robinson... now don't turn right here or we'll have to do it all over again, just go straight, yeah there now we should be good again. *proud smile* Emergency averted!

You can't even see where the entrance is from the parking lot... luckily a nice lady pointed us in the right direction, and told us that you need an entire day to really do the Zoo. We made an executive decision to come back tomorrow as it was closing in 2 hours. I was relieved, otherwise we would have been rushed... and that would have stressed me out.

So um yeah, I think I'm allowed to be exhausterated... I think Dad is too, he's having a 20 min nap (that he started an hour ago) before dinner ;o) I'm super stoked for the zoo tomorrow though! I hear they have cute fuzzy pandas *smiles*