I'm back!
2007-09-23 - 7:34 p.m.

We're back from our house hunting trip! Actually, we've been back since Wednesday, but I haven't had the time or energy to write about it until now. I should have some pictures up soon if anybody wants to see them (leave me a note or email me). Let me see if I can recap.

We left on Wednesday the 12th from the local airport here and our flight left on time at 7:20 a.m. I'd packed a bottle of water in my carry-on and B had packed water, sodas and his homemade catsup in his. We haven't flown anywhere in a couple years and didn't realize we couldn't take those things in our carry-ons, so unfortunately they were all confiscated when we went through security. We got plenty of drinks on the plane, though.

We had a short flight from here to Charlotte, which went fine, then a 5-hour flight to Vegas, which also went fine. I'm not sure why, but about halfway through the second flight I started feeling sick. I thought it was probably because I needed to eat, so I ate some of the chicken sandwich I'd brought, but that only made me feel worse. I also had a headache and took some Excedrin, but that didn't help. By the time we finally landed I felt like I was gonna throw up/pass out/die.

I managed to make it through getting off the plane, getting our rental car and driving to the Exc@libur on the strip, then we both took a short nap. After that I felt quite a bit better and we had dinner at the Exc@libur buffett. I was feeling pretty hungry, but yet I couldn't eat very much, which kind of sucked because it was a buffett, after all. We walked around the casino for a bit after that and then went to bed.

The next day, Thursday, we drove from Vegas to Kingm@n, Arizon@ to meet with a realtor there. As soon as we walked into her office she started talking and never stopped until we left for our hotel that evening. She took us to see some houses in the city of Kingm@n and then drove us out to a community north of the city called V@lle Vist@. The houses in the city were all really close together, so we weren't too excited about those, but the houses in V@lle Vist@ were a lot farther apart and the area was really scenic. It's a golf course community, which usually means really expensive houses, but we looked at lots in our price range. There were two we liked the best; both have the same floor plan but look different from the outside and are slightly different on the inside. One is a foreclosure and is substantially less expensive, but we didn't like that one as much as the other.

Thursday night we stayed at a hotel there in Kingm@n and then Friday we met again with the realtor. I wasn't looking forward to seeing her again because frankly, she annoyed me, but we felt we really needed to do talk with her more and see more houses in V@lle Vist@. We were actually supposed to meet with 3 other realtors in different cities in AZ, but we pretty much decided that V@lle Vist@ was it for us, so we cancelled with them. We spent most of the day on Friday with the Kingm@n realtor and looked at more houses in V@lle Vist@, then we stayed in Kingm@n again that night.

Saturday we drove to the Grand Canyon and spent the day there and then we stayed at this crappy hotel called The Red Fe@ther Inn. Don't stay there if you go to the Grand Canyon. The people in the room above us got in around 11:30 p.m., walked around on their REALLY squeaky floor until about 2:00 a.m., then got up and started again around 4:00 a.m. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night. The weather was beautiful for the two days we spent at the Grand Canyon. B drove us in using a forest access road and we didn't have to pay the park fee. :P We visited a lot of scenic overlooks and B pointed out various trails that he's hiked in the past, and we spent some time rooting around looking for arrowheads and stone tools at one trailhead. I think I found a tool of some kind there (a rock that had been worked into sharp edges), so that was pretty exciting. No arrowheads, though.

Sunday we spent the day at the Grand Canyon again, then drove back to Kingm@n and stayed there that night. We decided to meet with the realtor one more time on Monday and we went back out to V@lle Vist@ to look at a couple more houses and also to look at our two favorites again. We made it clear to the realtor that we needed to leave Kingm@n by 2:00 p.m., so she wouldn't waste a lot of time jabbering, and we managed to leave right at 2:00. Then we drove back to Vegas. We thought we'd miss rush hour traffic since we got there by 4:00, but I-15 was totally jammed right at Vegas. It took us probably 15 minutes to get off the exit ramp.

That night and Tuesday night we stayed at The Orle@ns in Vegas. It's not on the strip so it was a little less expensive, plus we really like their breakfast buffett. Turns out it was a really nice room there. I think we'll be staying there again when/if we're in Vegas. We had a nice view of the strip from our room, too.

Tuesday during the day we made a trip over to Sephor@ so I could throw away some money there. I just love it there. I brought one of their catalogs with me that I'd marked pages of things I wanted to get/try, but some things apparently are only available on the website because they didn't have them in the store. I still found lots of goodies. I got some sparkly eyeliner, some body wash that B picked out, a hair brush, some perfume and I think something else I can't remember. The perfume I got is called C@nnabis Santal and, unbeknowst to me at the time, it's actually a men's fragrance. I guess that explains why B really liked it, too. B was going to buy more of this Philosophy brand body wash that we both like, but they didn't have any in the store, so they were kind enough to give him free samples of several other Philosophy body washes that he was interested in. I also got a free gift (a teeny little tube of some Kiner@se face cream) for spending over $100 that day. I didn't realize quite how expensive that perfume was until later on that day when I looked at the receipt.

We shopped a little bit in the stores in the Venetian next door and B was really excited to look at this Venetian glass place. They had lots of stuff he wanted, but he decided to wait until we move to get anything, though he did buy me a pretty glass bead necklace from there.

For lunch we decided to forego the buffetts and instead ate at In-N-Out Burger. Neither of us had been to this place before and man did they have some good burgers. The fries left something to be desired, but the price was unbeatable. We also spent a little time planning for the next day by driving the route to the car rental return so we'd know exactly where to go (ie., not get lost, which has happened). Then we went back to The Orle@ns and spent some time in the casino and later had dinner at the TGIFridays inside the hotel/casino. I actually won about $10 playing penny slots. I think B won some amount too, but he just kept playing until it was all gone instead of cashing out like I did.

Wednesday morning we had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to get some breakfast and catch our plane home. That's 7:30 a.m. our time, but it still felt reeeeeally early, I guess because it was dark and we were both feeling sleep-deprived. We managed to get breakfast, return the rental car and get to our gate in plenty of time and then we flew from Vegas to Philadelphia, which took about 4 1/2 hours. That flight went very well and was kind of fun, in fact. I spent some time reading my Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, listened to my mp3 player, played some cards with B, watched part of the in-flight movie using my own headphones (he he) and then watched an episode of Two and a Half Men that they showed after that. We then flew home from Philadelphia and that was a really short flight - less than an hour - and that too was uneventful, thank goodness. I'm always really paranoid on the last flight of the trip because I've made it through all the others and my superstitious mind thinks that maybe the last flight will be the one where I die. Sick, I know. I can't help it.

Anyway, we got a taxi ride home from the airport and got home around 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday. The kitties were very happy to see us and Spice and Miki followed B and I, respectively, around the house the rest of the day. I think they took us being gone pretty hard this time because they're used to us both being home all the time. They seem to be recovered now, though.

There's actually more that's happened since we got home, but I think this is long enough for now, so I'll save the rest for next time. ^_^

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