WE WENT TO IDAHO TO SEE MY SIBLINGS. YAY. (June 25, 2020)

Twenty-fourth post from the original blog.

"As you probably guessed from the title, me and my family went to see my brothers and sister up in Idaho. On Tuesday, June 16, we took a plane from Nevada to Colorado, and then another from Colorado to Idaho. The whole thing took around four to five hours or so, and everyone just wanted to get to the hotel and hang out.

After we checked into the hotel and got everything unpacked, we went to my oldest brother Justin's house, where my other siblings Dean, Chase, and Kayla were staying for the week. Kayla made ritzy chicken (which is basically just homemade chicken strips with Ritz cracker crumbs as the covering instead of whatever they use for normal chicken strips) along with mashed potatoes, and they were pretty good.

I also played Pokémon Red while I was up in Idaho. I'll tell you the details along with the actual story, something I haven't done yet.

Pokémon Red - I recently got back into this a few days before we went to Idaho, and the reason I gave up on it for a few months was because the battles kept getting too hard. Well, I figured out the problem a few weeks ago: I wasn't taking enough time to level up my Pokémon. After realizing that, I took plenty of time to level up all of my Pokémon, and I easily managed to get the Boulder Badge and the Cascade Badge from Brock in Pewter City and Misty in Cerulean City, respectively. However, once I got to Vermilion City, things started going south. For some reason, I thought that once you got on the S.S. Anne, you couldn't exit the ship until after you were done doing what you needed to do. Apparently I was wrong, so the difficulty of the Trainer battles due to my Pokémon's levels being the same as the opponents was because I didn't level them up at all east of Vermilion City. Because of my ignorance, I deleted my progress and started anew. Luckily, I figured out that in the early-game, battling and gaining EXP on Route 2 (between Viridian City and Pewter City) is more efficient than battling in Viridian Forest (which is smack in the middle of Route 2) because Pokémon spawn about two or three times as often than in Viridian Forest, and the EXP difference per Pokémon is only a little bit less than in Viridian Forest (because of the lack of Kakuna or Metapod on Route 2). This was helpful because even though I had leveled up my Bulbasaur to Level 13 (so it could learn and use Vine Whip to take out all of the Pokémon in the Pewter City Gym each in one fell swoop), I still had my other Pokémon at only Levels 6-9, which isn't enough for the battles on Route 3. I kept battling to gain experience for Pikachu and Pidgey, and I got Pikachu up to Level 11, which should be good for the Flying-type Pokémon (Pidgey and Spearow) on Route 3, and Pidgey up to Level 12 (because Pidgey levels up faster in their earlier levels).

Anyway, the next day, after we went to Justin's house again and I played some Pokémon Red, we went to a park that had these electric bikes and scooters we could ride on. I wanted to play Pokémon Go at the park because you can find a lot of Pokémon at most parks, but I knew that you can't use your phone while riding a bike or scooter. It was still fun, though, and while I wasn't on the scooter, I did manage to catch a few Pokémon.

We also took a tour of the city and I caught a ton of Pokémon while we were walking around. Justin and his girlfriend Britney led the tour. Kayla's boyfriend also came to Idaho to see us, which was cool.

We went camping on Friday and Saturday (June 19 and 20), but I didn't like it very much. I wasn't very prepared for camping, since we hadn't planned on it ahead of time, and the whole experience was kind of boring. I did play Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, and Kirby's Blowout Blast. At least until my 3DS died. After that I just played more Pokémon Red. It was on the camping trip that I deleted all of my save progress and started over.

Mario & Luigi: Dream Team - I've been playing this since the camping trip, and as of right now (as I'm writing this post), I'm trying to get the Expert Challenge for finishing a battle without getting hit by a Pi'illodactyl (as long as they attack at least once). I managed to get all of the Expert Challenges thus far, and I don't want to miss even one Expert Challenge.

Kirby's Blowout Blast - I forgot to mention in my last post that I got this game, along with Bug Fables and Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, with the Nintendo eShop cards I had gotten for my birthday. I managed to beat all of the normal stages in the game yesterday, but I still have the extra stages I need to beat.

Team Kirby Clash Deluxe - I bought all of the Gem Apples I could buy with real money (from the Nintendo eShop cards), and that was enough to make the tree in the village grow enough to where I could get 450 Gem Apples per harvest. Now that my Gem Apple needs are likely permanently satisfied, all I need to do to get enough materials for all of the gear in the game is to battle enemies and get Element Fragments and stuff. I already have a full set of Rarity 5 gear equipped (and Rarity 1, 2, 3, and 4 gear in stock). I also managed to beat the first two ordeals, against Kracko and Whispy Woods.

After getting back from Idaho, we just hung out. Unfortunately, since everyone was so tired, no one bothered to clean up the house, and now my room is messy. I would clean it up myself, but there are a lot of medical supplies I have that I don't know where to put them.

Anyway, that wraps it up for this post. Sorry it was really long."