Bending It: Article 1b - Days 2 and 3

Day 70 (Wednesday Dec 1st)

"The Grand Canyon ate my hiking shoes."

I slept in until 11am and Tina made me scrambled eggs on toast. Today was the day I would buy some new shoes, my old ones had only lasted two months but I think it was the Grand Canyon that killed them so there's no hard feelings. We went to most of the shoe shops in Bend but to no avail and at 1pm we went to pick up Max from bowling. He was doing great until we arrived and then it was mostly just gutter balls. Max and some of his friends got a ride with us into downtown but I couldn't join them because the shoe-hunt had to continue. At around 4pm we found some acceptable ones at Shopko but carried on looking in a few more stores before heading back to Shopko and buying the ones I'd already looked at. We picked up some groceries from Trader Joe's and then headed back home. Max and his friend Caleb wanted to go out for food and I decided to join them so Tina drove us to Kona which is a Hawaiian food place. I was a bit confused by the menu so I ended up with just a small bowl of veggie stir fry. When we got back home I had some soy corn dogs and Max went out to visit an ill Venezuelan exchange student. I did some chatting online and a friend from near Pittsburgh told me she'd possibly be in NYC when I return there for a few days before I fly home, this made me rather happy. Max came home and we had some popcorn whilst watching Conan O'Brien. We then caught the end of Letterman where there was a woman singing an awful song over the top of a Joe Satriani riff. Max stayed up to watch Regis on Craig Ferguson but I decided that retiring to my room to watch Legend Of The Bog starring Vinnie Jones was a better option. I only managed half of the movie before I fell asleep.

Day 71 (Thursday Dec 2nd)
"Everywhere goes somewhere."

I woke up at around midday and my washing was all warm and dry outside my room, then Tina heated up some homemade soup for my breakfast, I think spoiled is the word I'm looking for. I spent about an hour on the internet and the phone trying to sort out my bus ticket through Amtrak for the next day. The automated system (Julie) wasn't very helpful and the first guy I spoke to didn't seem too sure about things so I decided to call back a second time to confirm everything with a different person. I sent some messages out to people trying to organise the final Portland part of my trip because it was nearly time for me to book my flight back to New York. When Max got back from school he and Tina made a weird mixture of what seemed like every savoury snack in the cupboard. I didn't try any of that, instead I waited for my veggie buffalo wings and sweet potato fries. Max and I watched some South Park, then some of Conan (jeggings!) until the Kardashians came on. We got some photos of us in our matching Hawaiian shirts and then Max said he wanted to watch the second half of Legend Of The Bog with me, the fool! It was of course more entertaining watching it with Max and we laughed quite hard at the incredibly philosophical line, "Everywhere goes somewhere". Max then put on an awful Mark Hamill movie which I only watched half of before I could no longer keep my eyes open.