Mmmm......Sausage Legs! (Dec. 31st)

Out like a light!

Flying half way around the world is kind of a crazy concept.  To help with jet lag, I set my watch to Colorado time and tried to sleep/stay awake according to CO time.  I managed to stay awake for the 5+ hour flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong.  We left Hong Kong sometime in the morning there, which meant it was night in CO.  We slept on and off for this 16+ hour flight.........seriously....who can sleep soundly on a plane when you have to sit for that long?  Not possible for me!  After about 8 hours my butt, knees, and back started hurting from sitting still for so long.  In addition I was getting swelling in my legs from sitting with my feet on the floor and inactivity for so long.  When this happens the blood pools in your leg veins and it is uncomfortable.  I did my toe pressing and ankle rotation exercises as much as I could but nothing stopped my legs from looking like bratwursts on the grill just before they burst open!  My new nickname became, "Sausage Legs!"  I wished I had compression socks to help combat this problem but they didn't have them at the airport in Kathmandu and because my brain was numb from a lack of sleep I totally forgot to look while we were in Hong Kong.  Ugh!

I pulled my sock down so you can see the size difference in my leg where the sock was and where it wasn't. Haha! Gross! My ankles were nonexistent! 

We landed in New York around 1 in the afternoon with our brains operating at the equivalence of a slug!  Our sleep was minimal and we were done!  Done!  We wished there was some portal that would "beam" us to our comfy homes in the mountains of Colorado.  Instead we were thrust into the bowels of the JFK International Airport's United States Customs area where the officers were as cold as granite!  Welcome to USA!  We were both in a fog and navigating the customs process was not easy for us slugs.

It was pretty crazy to finally use a bathroom with a flush toilet and not have to worry about having toilet paper or flushing your toilet paper down the toilet!  In Nepal, their sewage system is not capable of accepting toilet paper.  Therefore there are little wastebaskets in the bathroom for you to throw your used toilet paper into.  This becomes a little gross when you are sharing a wastebasket with everyone else and their mother and you see it right there in front of you!  Its even more gross when you are using a pit toilet because you have to squat over a little hole which gets you nice and close to the toxic abyss of used toilet paper!  I heard screeching horror music every time I had to use a public bathroom.  The next step after you do your business is you have to rinse the bowl with water that is provided in a bucket next to the toxic wastebasket.  This requires handling a cup that floats in the water that everyone else has touched.  Danger Alert: Be careful of the rinsing step because water may splash back on you!  My advice for using the bathroom in a developing country is to plan ahead......drink only the necessary amount of water you need to be healthy, always carry toilet paper in your pocket because bathrooms in Nepal rarely have toilet paper for you to use, and practice squatting and aiming before you travel!  ;)

After 5 hours of layover in New York we finally boarded our last flight to Denver!  Luckily we both slept out of pure exhaustion to prepare for the last leg of our journey: driving over Berthoud Pass!  We picked up our car from my friend Mary Ann's parents' house in Lakewood and started our drive up the pass around 10:40 PM.  The roads were clear and we had "road food" to keep us awake and alert.

We arrived at my house a few minutes after midnight to celebrate the coming of 2016 with Walter and Winston!  It was a loud welcoming with good ole' Walter's whines and wales!  Of course my cat Winston played the typical cat card and remained coy all evening until it was bedtime.  He finally came around when he got his nightly kitty treat right before bed.  I guess he finally decided that he didn't have to punish me anymore for being gone.  I was in heaven with my sweet buddies.....John, Walter, and Winston!  Happy New Year!