It’s a joyful moment when your child suddenly acts like a grown up — and wants to spend time with you in the process!  A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Sailor Boy discovered he could obtain tickets to Hamilton (!!!) via the Navy.  So yes, I rearranged my life, and flew west to hang with him for a few days.

It was a whirlwind 48 hours — and pretty darn cool.  As usual, the flight was overbooked, and, as I had purchased my tickets rather last minute, I was stuck in the middle — but with whom? NO ONE! The window seater never showed, so my row-roomie and I got a little breathing room.  Next awesome moment: discovering that Three Billboards from Hibbing, Missouri was one of the movie options.  Yeah Delta! That was one of the movies I had yet to see for the Oscars, so I was literally crossing something off my to-do list.

Arrived a few minutes early, which is always great.  Enterprise did not have my reservation, which is NOT great.  Seems I was supposed to go to some other location. Ugh.  But they fixed me all up — awesome service, BTW.  Got my rental car, plugged in the GPS, and was told my destination was 18 miles away — which translated to 1 hour and 15 minutes (gotta love driving around bodies of water).  Advised Sailor Boy of my ETA and took off in my putt-putt rental car (kinda spoiled by my slick new ride, gotta be honest).  Traffic snarled up and I relayed my extended drive time to Sailor Boy, and plugged along, enjoying seeing mountains and forests (not something I see much since moving to the Midwest!).  Arrived at hotel, checked in, texted the Boy so he could start the 10 minute drive from his barracks to my hotel.  He texted back: “what room are you in?” Evidently he was so excited (cue the awwwws) that he drove over early and had been sitting in the parking lot waiting for almost 30 minutes! Nice to have a child excited to see you (not something I get from Singer Girl these days, lol)!

Sailor Boy was so excited to show me around.  I had visited Bremerton, WA once before, almost 2 years prior, but he didn’t know the area then. Now he had all sorts of plans.  He had about 5 restaurants to show off.  I gently reminded him that I was only there for a short time, and we already had our dinners booked.  He scoffed with the appetite of the young and highly-metabolized, saying we could just do 5 meals a day.  Um, no.  But love the enthusiasm!

Our plan that evening was to meet my brother and his wife for dinner in Tacoma.  About a 40 minute, beautiful drive.  Unless, of course, my son is driving.  Dude is a maniac.  We almost crashed twice, got lost countless times, and he didn’t really have a path in mind.   Luckily we both like metal music, so that drowned out some of my screams.

Mexican food for dinner — my fave! Margaritas taste especially delish when you have a designated driver (he’s 21 in April, so I will use him while I can). I got some amazing meat stew concoction, that doubled as a facial as it was so steaming hot.  Num. If you are ever in Tacoma, try Moctezuma’s!

When we got back to the hotel, I could barely keep my eyes open.  Seriously: fell asleep fully dressed as soon as he left for his barracks, dreaming about my next meal.

He picked me up around 830, and we went to the Big Apple Diner in Bremerton — The. Bomb.  Had these sausage stuffed German potato pancakes and far too much coffee.  Fully fueled, we headed to some wilderness walk.  We only got lost on our way there like twice this time, so we were doing better.  Finally arrived at some dirt road, and got out, ready to explore. But two creepy dudes were standing at their car, kinda watching us.  Looked like gnome people — older scandahoovian gents in modern day hiking gear.  It wasn’t their appearance that wigged us out so much as the way they just watched us.  We smiled and waved and said hi and tehy sort of nodded.  And there was a solitary hiking boot laying abandoned near them.  I don’t know it felt weird.  Totally thought we might end up as human sausage for their gnome grandbabies.

So we went walking!

Lol…it was gorgeous, and we talked about everything and nothing.  Actually, most of the weekend he tried to explain video game plots to me.  My head hurt.  I looked at the scenery.  It felt better.

Then we ran into the Giant Gnome Hikers again.   No idea how they got down where we were without us seeing them.  Totally creeped us out.  Sailor Boy was sure they were pod people.

Hustled back t the car, as Sailor Boy had muster (roll call, but in a uniform) at 130.  He dropped me off, where I realized that I had to be on the 450 am ferry to avoid traffic and make it to my flight on time.  Napped.

One of the main reasons Sailor Boy wanted to go to the play was to wear the suit he had made in India while on deployment.  He was so proud! We ferried into Seattle, parked and walked to an amazing dinner at the highly recommended Wild Ginger.  As we had not had lunch after our big hike with the scary alien hikers, we were scarfing down pot stickers, spicy beef, duck with plum sauce and more (and some shi-shi-poo-poo cocktails pour mama!).  Would love to spend more time in Seattle, which seems very cool.  But we hustled off to make curtain at HAMILTON!

Went to will call.  No names from the Nimitz on their list.  They sent us to some fancy side entrance.  Nope.  Nothing there.  At this point, Sailor Boy is casually freaking out. (and I am mentally calculating my airfare, car rental and hotel costs). But more amazing service: they put folding chairs on the aisle for us and we saw the show.  It was as terrific as I had heard and hoped.  And at the end? Sailor Boy was wiping tears away.

That was some of the best 3 days I have ever had.  So much fun and laughter and getting to know my boy as an adult.  He thanked me over and over for coming out.  It royally screwed up my week (and my sleep) but man was it worth it. I did not throw away my shot.