Norcal to North Carolina

I had a red-eye flight on August 19th at 10:20pm and ended up in a middle seat =/ for about a 7 hour flight from Sacramento to North Carolina. Couldn't sleep cause of that. But I made friends with the lady next to me on the plane. Finally, when I decided to bust out the PSP, the plane landed shortly after. I was restarting my game file on Star Ocean 1.

My brother and Alley picked me up and took me to Waffle House-which was delicious and cheap. Immediately, I noticed how green and country like North Carolina was and that it was humid (my brother said that humidity then was nothing compared to how it normally is) and was raining hard on and off. 

My brother Kevin and Alleys house.

I took a long nap the first day. Can't remember much of the first night. I know I got to see a bunch of random stores like Family Dollar, and ate at Outback Steakhouse where I noticed how often "Ya'all" was said. I got my lip re-pierced on Tuesday morning and that same night we watched people sing Karaoke at Kickback Jacks after Spice World on TV.

A good amount of time, my brother and I spent burning Sega Saturn games because he got a modded Sega Saturn on Craigslist. I swear that was one of my most favorite systems growing up. I finally got to play Christmas NiGHTS after 15 years of waiting (it's a rare demo to find). 

Alley did my hair on Thursday. It was the first time I've had my hair professionally dyed at a salon (been doing it myself for years) and the first time I've had real highlights. I lurve it so far. Got a lot of compliments on it at work! :]

Shopping at Food Lion for my party Friday before my brother had to take me to the airport about 2am in the morning.

I was really sad to leave. The only people that make it worth returning home for was my parental units, Kayla and Edwin. Everything else, I could honestly leave here behind in a heartbeat. There's nothing left for me to learn/do in Stockton.

So now I must weigh decision in the back of mind everyday, of if I wanna move out there next year or not.

Eddy and I went river rafting the next day Sunday on Stanislaus River. It was a LOT of work compared to American River. The American River, you can just float there on the raft 98% of the time and just drift and nothing will really ever happen. At Stanislaus, if you aren't constantly paddling with the oars every 2 minutes, then you will hit some sharp bushes, sharp rocks, get stuck on rocks etc. And it had a lot more rapids. No wonder Jill told me she didn't wanna go back to that river. It was still fun though.

The raft hit a rock at one point early on, we ricochet'd so hard that I fell off. Eddy's family had to grab me. The camera I had clutched went under the water in the rapids and surprisingly sunk straight to the bottom. Rodney had to stop the rapids as much as he could by positioning our raft and reach deep for the camera in ice cold water which took awhile. I felt bad, I would never want anyone to risk their life for my camera, but at least he got the camera back. I still have yet to test it but at least I got all our camera pics and footage prior to that happening.