I’m still on a father/son vacation right now, but I have Wifi and my laptop.  So, I can still make this post the night before.  Though, I’m struggling to stay awake since it’s been a busy couple of days.  I’ll put a slideshow at the end with some of the fun animals that we saw during our adventures.

As far as the trip goes, we drove up here on Wednesday and arrived with enough time to rest before seeing the Mario movie.  The theater here is really cool and old-school, which my son enjoyed.  We have a great room too.  Small kitchen area with a sink and microwave plus a big shower.  Nice balcony with a view of the river too.  Makes hanging around the room between outings very pleasant.

Thursday was the Syracuse mall where we walked around, had lunch, and did an animal encounter.  The one I originally signed us up for wasn’t feeling well, so we were switched to fennec foxes.  They weren’t really social, but we got to be in their enclosure to learn about them.  Got to visit the sloths for the last 5 minutes.  The one that was awake was faster than one would expect.  It would occasionally reach for my son when his back was turned and stop if we looked at her.  Got very close to me as well, which is odd since sloths don’t have good eyesight.  Guess she was happy to have company?

Friday was more animals with a trip to the zoo.  It’s small, so we only stayed for 1.5 hours before heading back.  We still got to see plenty of animals like elephants, tigers, a chicken standing on a sheep, and a red panda that wasn’t sleeping.  My son was focused more on jotting down monster ideas for video games whenever an animal inspired him.  I wish I still had my ‘animal magic’ books, which always helped me.  No idea where they went and I’ve checked everywhere.

Today is more low key.  Having breakfast with a college friend who I haven’t seen in person since maybe 2002 or 2003.  Then, we have a Pokemon Go event from 2-5 and I got a parking pass to join the college crowd for it.  Dinner will be with two more college friends and then we head back to the hotel to relax.  Tomorrow is the long drive home and I have to get back with enough time to do all the laundry.  I have enough clothes, but having to wait another week to do it will mean sacrificing an entire Saturday or Sunday.  I’d rather take 3-4 hours Sunday evening to get it done.

I haven’t done much writing on this trip beyond some blog posts and staring at my notebook.  Last weekend, I fixed up the outline for Darwin & the Deadlands Queen and finished the ‘Phi Beta Files’ outline.  That left me with no projects to work on even leading up to the trip.  I picked ‘Coven of the Gray’ to work on and tried to start it up, but it took me two days to get the concept started in my head.  Spent a lot of time catching Pokemon while thinking and staring at the ceiling.  Finally came up with a concept for this idea and landed on a single book.  The inspiration is how a person who is bombarded with negativity will always be negative and their brain will become wired that way.  So, it’s very difficult to mentally pull out of that situation and can lead to self-destructive behavior when faced with positivity.

Next week is back to work for me and school for my son, so I don’t expect to get a lot done as I get back into the routine.  Don’t really have another day off until Memorial Day weekend.  Technically, I will have to take a day off for court, but I don’t think we can count that as a relaxing period.  Anyway, I’m going to focus on ‘Coven of the Gray’ when I have the physical and mental energy.  It’s supposed to be warm too, so I’m going to be heading out to the parks as well.  Pokemon Go is helping me get some thoughts together unless I’m walking with other people.  Maybe I should let that experience help me fine tune the ‘Keys of Eden’ stories that were birthed by me wanting to create 100 creatures for a single adventure.

What are the goals of the week?

1. Drive back home.
2. Get back into the routine.
3. Help son get back into routine.
4. Work on ‘Coven of the Gray’.
5. Work on Pokemon Lego sets when I need a screen break.
6. Watch more ‘Falling Skies’.
7. Contend with certain stressors.
8. Catch Pokemon for fresh air and exercise.
9. Go to bed early if needed.
10. Find a local bubble tea place.

Oh yeah.  Had that whole birthday thing on Thursday too.  Was on the trip, so I didn’t do any celebrating.   Just said thanks to all the messages and enjoyed the day.