I had woken up a bit when Nightmaren got up but I went back to sleep right after. It was around 11am by the time I had finally woken up. Nightmaren had decided to let me “sleep in” considering all the early mornings we had to wake up at for the past three days. It was definitely nice to sleep a good amount of time so I appreciated the gesture.

After having had washed myself up, we dunned for a little bit. During that time however, we were looking up a few places that we could possibly check out before I would inevitably leave the state. We eventually found a place called Sundance Square while searching through Google. It looked pretty nice and it wasn’t too far away so we got ourselves ready and began to go on the LOVE QUEST.

On our way there, I had noticed a restaurant called Pappa’s Burgers. I started to laugh as I started to recall some of the stories that Nightmaren had told me in the past. What really started to kill me was when I noticed the American Heart Association clinic was literally placed less than 20 meters apart. I was laughing hysterically! It almost made it seem like that the restaurant had gotten a reputation of creating too many customers with heart problems. As if that wasn’t enough though. About ten minutes later, we were crossing this bridge with a very odd design. As expected of the cultural district, the design was fairly pleasing to look at. However as we were driving by, I had noticed an older gentleman was just laying there doing leg lifts. OF ALL PLACES.

Unfortunately those DANG DIRTY TROLLS DISRUPTED OUR LOVE QUEST AND WE COULDN’T FIND THE PLACE. It’s already bad enough that Fort Worth has some of the DUMBEST intersections and roads I have ever seen in my life. We had tried to find the spot for a while but we ended up giving up as we had gone around in a circle three times and still could not find it. While we were circling around though, we had passed by that bridge a couple times. I guess the old man had noticed a couple cars had passed by and decided to go somewhere else. Can’t be having everyone finding out where the best place to do leg lifts are now can we?

Nightmaren had decided to take me to MONtgomery Plaza because we figured it’d be a place full of WEED (man, there are FAR too many inside jokes but I’m sure most of you reading are friends that already know this ahaha). The first few minutes was spent walking around the plaza to let me appreciate the building design. As you can imagine, it was a small plaza but it felt very comfortable (once you ignore the blazing heat). Since we hadn’t eaten yet, we went to a pizza place called Pie Five. The restaurant is similar to Subway/Quizno in the sense that you can order what ingredients you want right there and they’ll toast it right then and there. It takes roughly around five minutes for it to cook so it was very delicious. I was a little irritated when I had realized that I did not get the vegetables that were supposed to be included in my pizza (I chose a preset combo) but I decided to pay it no attention. It was still very delicious. We then went to the frozen yogurt place to help cool ourselves off. I can’t remember exactly what flavor I ended up getting but it was an amazing mix of a lot of flavors and was also gluten-free. So not only was it absolutely delicious to eat, but it was definitely healthy! Always nice. Spent a little bit of time just hanging out in the plaza and soaking in the atmosphere.

I later suggested that we could visit a few museums. I had thought it would be nice and it could even possibly provide some nice photographic opportunities (even if it was going to be on my phone AND if they let me). We had passed a few but Nightmaren had stated that the reason why we weren’t going to go to those ones is because they were the queer liberal arts kind of “art” (ie, a chair glued to the wall kind of art). I had suggested one museum and we went out to go there. We eventually found it but it was part of another part of Fort Worth’s obnoxious intersections. We passed by it a couple times mainly because we couldn’t find the freaking parking for the museum. After circling it about three times, we figured we might as well find another one to go to. When Nightmaren had found a museum that was worth the visit, we pulled up in the parking lot and began to head inside… except we couldn’t.

Turns out that the museum closed on Mondays. In fact, all museums closed on Mondays. We didn’t know that this was a fact obviously so we were horrored. Luckily there was a statue outside of the one we had parked in so I managed to at least take one picture of something… artistic. As we left to just find someplace to hang out, Nightmaren had pointed out (only because Nightmaren didn’t notice and think about it at the time) that apparently we were in “cow town”.

Our final destination ended up being the mall that I first went to when I had arrived in Texas. We just needed to kill a bit of time before I would eventually head back to the airport and it definitely did the job. We also wanted to take a few pictures together as we had realized that the last time I went to Texas, I barely had any with the two of us together. Today was going to be the day where we would make sure that would not be the case. Of course, we went to Sears (had to go through there to enter the mall from where we were parked). We decided to fool around and kind of… marvel at how empty it was again. I then realized that my gyroid brothers were in the store. So naturally I had Nightmaren take a picture of me in my natural pose.

We continued to roam around the mall just looking around. I noticed that there was a Teavana place and naturally had to look around. Of course I wouldn’t be able to make any purchases (outrageously expensive to begin with) but I do like asking a few questions as to what’s good and how to brew properly. I also remember how Nightmaren would jokingly accuse me of being a coffee lover because I came from WASHINGTON. While I may not have eaten from there, Nightmaren and I felt it necessary to at least take a picture of ourselves in front of FasTaco. If it’s fas, who wouldn’t want to take a picture with it?

There’s only so much roaming you can do before one begins to feel that their stay is a little overdue. As such, we left and went back to Nightmaren’s apartment before I would eventually have to go to the airport. We sat around, chat a bit, I ate my leftovers from the restaurant last night, and just simply dunned. It was then finally time to go and we got my stuff and headed towards the airport. The LOVE QUEST was beginning to come to its conclusion.

At least we thought it was.

When we had arrived, the traffic was pretty bad and it was fairly confusing to navigate around (we couldn’t figure out where I could be dropped off). I still had about half an hour before the plane would depart so I went to the desk to get my box checked in. They told me that since I didn’t arrive 45 minutes prior to its departure, I had “missed” my plane. I think that was the case last time when I was going to New Jersey but I can’t be certain. In any case, you can imagine how upsetting the situation was when I had to pay for a new flight going back home.

After I had settled things down and figured out what to do next, I explained the situation to Nightmaren and was able to spend on more night in Texas. Thankfully since the Trinity Rail Station operates near the airport, I didn’t have to worry too much about having to wait for Nightmaren to pick me up. I had to take a few shuttles before I would eventually arrive at a station but I managed to find my way around. While I was waiting for the train however, something had fallen on my head. It felt light but I couldn’t find what it was on the ground. I thought it was someone because I heard some laughing; however I was unable to locate any possible person who could have thrown anything light on my head. I ignored it and went on the train when it finally arrived.

When I had arrived at the train station in Fort Worth, I decided to sit outside near a pole so that Nightmaren would be able to see me while driving by. Again, I felt something tap my head. This time, I was able to determine what it was: a cockroach.

It was my first time seeing the insect in person so I actually had no idea what it was. I just thought it was a fairly large beetle. When I noticed it scurrying faster and towards my box, that’s when I had realized that it was a cockroach. Luckily these things were quite small so it wasn’t that freaky. It was still a bit disgusting to see but it wasn’t so bad. It took Nightmaren a little bit to arrive but I was glad when I saw the car pull up. I was really happy that Nightmaren was able to help me out and let me stay one last night. I can’t see Nightmaren being the kind of person to force me to find a place to stay but I also made sure I found a way to help myself to the airport (since Nightmaren had something to do the next morning) to make up for Nightmaren’s kindness.

Since I had spent a fair amount of time putting the sleeping bag in the box, I decided to just sleep on the floor. I’ve done it a couple of times before (and I viewed it as self-punishment in a way) so I didn’t mind so much. I did find something interesting before I went to sleep though. I found out that June 8th was apparently national best friend day. I guess that’s the reason why I wasn’t able to go! Clearly the people at the airport planned all of this.

Jerks.

Texas Chronicles Day 7: Overtime

I initially wanted to make this day its own separate post, however the amount of events that occurred on this day didn’t really justify the need to create a whole new post. Anyway, I’ll explain what ended up happening the day after.

While I didn’t get too much sleep, I was fine. I didn’t really worry too much since I figured I would be sleeping a little bit on the plane.

Once we had gotten ourselves ready, we went out FAS. Nightmaren dropped me off at the Trinity Rail Station and we said our TRUE and HONEST goodbye. It was a little sad how this time around didn’t feel as “final” as it did last time but it felt fitting in its own way. I’ll explain that later.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened as I was traveling from the train station back to the airport. Only when I had arrived at the airport that made me a bit concerned. As I was approaching the Alaska Airlines section, I noticed there was a huge line for the baggage check-ins. I figured that I could just check myself in through their self-automated terminals so I don’t have to deal with the line… except that was down. Apparently there was some issue with the Alaska Airline servers (thus explaining the line). The app for the Alaska Airlines wasn’t working (I’m guessing due to the website being down) so I had to wait in line with everyone else.

Luckily I kept checking the app and found out that it was working. Since I didn’t want to have to wait, I ended up just going up ahead so I can at least get on the plane on time. Turns out that this ended up delaying the plane for everyone. I at least was able to get my box checked in at the terminal where my flight was supposed to land.

The flight ended up being delayed for an hour but it wasn’t horrible at least. I only felt bad for my mother because she had to cancel some appointments before she would be able to pick me up. Since the flight ended up delayed (and she didn’t account for the fact that there would still be some time after I landed before I would be able to meet up with her), she ended up having to cancel some more appointments with her clients.

In the end, everything went well and it was nice to be in a cooler state. Although it didn’t take too long before I started to feel that our weather here in WA was hot, it was definitely better than the humid-whale-environment weather that was in Texas. As soon as I got home, I got myself something to eat and immediately went up to go to work. It was almost weird to see how quickly I transitioned from being at Texas back to working at the store. It really felt as though nothing had changed.

It’s been a little over a month since I’ve been to Texas and it feels quite surreal. Nightmaren and I would talk to each other as though us meeting each other in person was just as normal as talking to each other over Skype. I suppose we had seen each other’s face so many times that it felt like another occurrence in our daily lives. During my time there at Texas, Nightmaren and I would often joke that it’d be another three years before we would see each other again. In reality, we really do hope that it won’t take that long again before we can spend some time together in person. Perhaps next time, I’ll be able to bring Leyzee with me (or Nightmaren could even visit WA!).

The trip was truly a remarkable one. Definitely another chapter to save for later viewing.

Thank god I don’t have to sleep in that sleeping bag anymore.