Andrew was spending every damn weekend in the hills with his stupid friend and his stupid family. After the second weekend in a row I visibly perterbed. He asked me to come up to this stupid people's ranch with him the next weekend which I refused to do. First of all, it's a dust bowl up there and there's nothing to look at but dirt, oak trees, and cows. Second of all he was cutting wood. I don't cut wood. And lastly of course I don't like animals getting hurt. He was coming home every weekend talking about his great time and how his friend's mom made such good food and worked so hard cleaning up after everyone, blah blah blah. At this point I'm angry. Why the hell does he notice when Old Stupid Lady cooks and cleans but my efforts go unnoticed? And he wants me to be friends with this stupid woman! Not going to happen. I tell him I have plenty of friends and he shouldn't make me try to be friends with this stupid lady so that I'll think it's ok when he spends so much time with her and her stupid family. Let's just call them The Stupids from now on.
Skip forward through a week of fighing. He claims I never do what he wants to do and we always do what I want to do. He also claims that he would just LOVE for me to come up and hang out with him at The Stupid's ranch. He says he'll take me out to lunch and we can ride 4-wheelers. I stupidly agree (maybe I should join The Stupid Family). So I drive for two hours with Cocoa practically on my lap and when I get to the house he gave me directions too there's a sign giving me directions to a different place! That's irritating. So I find the damn place (we're talking hills, unmarked roads, and no civilization here) and he informs me that we'll be having lunch with The Stupids. OH HELL NO. I insist he take me to lunch as promised so he does. We get back and I ask about my 4-wheeler ride and he tells me he doesn't know where the 4-wheelers are and I should just come sit in the dust bowl and watch him and the Stupid men work. I find this akin to watching grass grow so I blow that pop stand.
The weekend ends and there isn't so much fighting but some discussing. I tell him he tricked me into a wasted day at The Stupid Ranch. He says he loves being in nature and he wants me to be there too. I say that I love nature too (not a lie!) but I don't want to share it with The Stupids and I don't want him too every freaking weekend either. I point out that we are newlyweds and spending every weekend apart isn't cool. I mean I'm not co-dependant or anything and I infact love some alone time but we're talking 3 weekends in a row at this point. The dog poop is not being picked up. The grass is not being mowed. Not to mention the importance of quality time! I tell him I'd be more than happy to revel in all mother nature has to offer if it was just us more often than not. So he asks me to go hunting/camping with him the following weekend and of course I can't say no. I just said I love nature and I would do things if it was just him and I. BOO!
So I dread the trip the whole week but put on a happy face until Saturday morning. I woke up and the weather was beautiful and we were going to cover some ground that my grandpa used to hunt. Somehow I got excited about it! Not about the deer killing part but since Andrew's been hunting deer unsucessfully for about 10 years I wasn't that worried.... We drove up in the Mendocino National Forest and drove around scouting out deer all day. The scenary was amazing! Then we found a little camp site to spend the night in. We were packing light and sleeping in the back of Andrew's Tahoe so it was easy set up and take down. We had both of our dogs with us but I still ended up freezing my ass off that night. I should have packed one more blanket. The next morning we drove around a bit more and then we decided to head out of the forest and back into the foot hills. He wanted to drive around The Stupid's land a little bit to see if he saw anything. I swear to you he's obsessed with this family. Or maybe it's just Old Lady Stupid, I don't know. We end up taking some road thinking it would put us out at a spot on the way home. We were wrong. It went on FOREVER and we ended up back in the damn forest that we left that morning! I was SO done about half way through that last drive. I was tired of being in the car and tired of bumpy switch back roads. We finally made it home about 7:30 and I can not wait to get into bed. It's too bad I have to work in the morning :(.
Here's a picture of the sunrise this morning in the forest.
