Driving to Monterey

From Santa Barbara we went up to Monterey to visit one of my old friends that I grew up with in Colorado, Tyson Shelley. He's married with a cute little baby now. Anyway, the drive up that coastline is ridiculously gorgeous. It was also really, really foggy a lot of the time so I didn't take a gazillion pictures. We saw some elephant seals beach bumming it, along with a lot of beautiful scenery. If I were a plastic surgeon, or the heiress of a million dollar pyramid scheme, or Sean Connery, a portion of my fortune would definitely be spent on a house somewhere along the California Coast.

We drove through Lompoc which is home to a large Air Force base but the rest of the city is cute and quaint. Then we drove through the little town of Guadalupe, California and ate the best tacos I've ever had in my life! I kept my receipt because I wanted to remember the name of the place-- we actually ate there again on our way back down the coast a week and a half later. Since then I have lost the receipt, but I did some research on google maps and I'm pretty sure I found the place. It's a market/restaurant called Super Carniceria La Chiquita located on Guadalupe Street. If you ever travel along California Highway 1, you MUST stop and eat at this place. If it was 30 miles from my home, I'd eat there at least once a week. So with our tummies full and our mouths happy, we kept traveling north. When we got to Monterey we decided that we could probably live on a boat. So maybe that's our next adventure. Jake kind of looks like a boat captain with that scruff on his face.

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara this, and Santa Barbara that, and everything about Santa Barbara is so great.... this is what we heard from people all over California (and Oprah.) It actually was lovely. And we had a terrific guide. Our couchsurfing host was the best! We watched awesome surfing where people were doing all kinds of old school tricks on their boards. Hand stands and crazy stuff. Check out that guy hangin 10. They make it look so easy! Anyway, our host took us all around town to the mission, to see the lights, to eat excellent gelato made by an old Italian man's hands, and the best burrito I've ever had (probably made by a Mexican's hands but I didn't meet the chef that time.) 

Our host also drove us out to Ojai to see a local musician named Emy Reynolds play her music. Her drummer, Piper, was amazing. We enjoyed some greasy bar food and felt very welcome in boring old Ojai. Then on the way home, our host got pulled over because he was driving too fast.... and he got a ticket! I felt so bad but he was okay with it. He said receiving a ticket makes up for all the times he didn't get one. Good attitude! He's also a photographer and asked us if we'd model for one of his class assignments. Something to do with lighting. The first picture of him is one I took with my lower class camera. The flash on my camera triggered his equipment to flash and my picture turned out completely black.... until I messed with it in iPhoto. It looks so horrible and it makes me laugh when it's displayed next to his pictures. Anyway, Phillip Van Nostrand. He's good. Check out his website! Like every other coastal city in California, we enjoyed Santa Barbara, but it's crazy expensive to live there.

My bro and his awesome wifey.

Jake and I got to visit our third group of friends (and my favorite shhhh don't tell the others) in Los Angeles. My brothers family! They are soooo sweet! Well my brother married a sweet girl and she influenced him to be a sweeter brother, and now I have two sweet little nephews who I love so much! We chilled with them for a whole week and enjoyed just being with family. I don't need any of that L.A. entertainment when I have these adorable nephews to play with! But the weather was so nice that we took a nice little hike and trip to the zoo. Can you tell which picture is Jake and which is the hairy goat giraffe?

There was a lot of diaper changing, laughing, toothless smiles, toy cars, good food, napping, forehead kisses and monkeying around. Man, all the stuff that babies do kinda sounds like the same stuff a bunch of rednecks would do. Don't you just wanna take a big old bite out of those chunky baby cheeks? I could spend all day with these guys!

BLISS FEST

After we made it to L.A., we stayed a couple of nights with my good friend that I met years ago at what was once called Ricks College (now BYU-Idaho). My friend whose name just happens to be Rick, and his wife Bethy, are two of the most loving and laid back people I think I've ever met. They showed us around the city of Torrance, took us to lunch at an amazing taco truck, and as always, downloaded some great new music to our iPods. It was a lot of fun hanging out with them... no pictures.

After that we stayed another couple of nights in a different part of L.A. with our amazing friend who we met in Hawaii, Nathan W. Bush Bliss, and his sister Emily. There's a lot to see in Los Angeles, so we did some walking and talking and photo-ing. We decided to see Union Station and "China"town, and we just happened to run across a Native American Heritage celebration downtown that was beautiful and entertaining.

We hung around the apartment drinking maté, playing music and "making it rain." Rain MONEY! Since the BLISS duo was moving out of their apartment, Emily was trying to locally sell some furniture via craigslist. After somebody picked up and purchased the first item with cold hard cash, Jake made up a song and Emily danced in the money. Nathan kept brewing up new batches of maté which meant he kept cleaning out the french press. Yes, those pictures are in the correct order. Nathan dumped the leaves and then looked out the window 50 feet down to the alley. Haha, nobody was there but it would have been funny.

Then we did the Venice Beach thing. It's not one of my favorite places to visit, but it's intriguing to know that the Venice Beach community exists. We saw skateboarders and rollerbladers and hemp weavers and tweakers. People just doin' their thang. I'm glad those people are happy doing what they do, because I am happy to live in a house with doors, work a job, eat regular meals and take regular baths. To each his own. After a long day of walking we treated ourselves to Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles. Savory and sweet. Mmmm. Jake created another song about chicken and waffles later that day.

Residual Haunting

I didn't want to break the perfect succession of delayed postings I've been keeping up on so well, but I experienced one of my FIRSTS today so I must share. Jake likes to watch the show Ghost Hunters but that stuff freaks me out when I think about it too much so I don't watch the show with him. Spirits and ghosts and goblins can do whatever they want, as long as they leave me out of it! I always thought if I saw or heard or felt a ghost I would probably wet my pants.

As you may or may not know, Jake and I have been in South Carolina for about 10 days now. We're staying with some new friends until we find a place to live. They have been restoring a cute, little old house near downtown that they tell me was used as a medical station or some kind of headquarters at one time during the war. I haven't thought much of it, you know, old spirits hanging around or anything like that. They've modernized everything so it doesn't have any hint of an old creepiness.

Well this morning around 9:30 I opened the front door and before I could take a step outside I heard a man talking on the front porch. His voice sounded a lot like James Earl Jones, but not so deep. It was like I had just caught the end of a conversation between him and somebody else. So I stepped outside to see who was enjoying a seat on our front porch but there was nobody there. I walked around the L-shaped porch and there was nobody on the other side either. I walked out into the driveway and looked down the street but there wasn't even a car in sight. It was a quiet Sunday morning with nobody else around.

His tone was not urgent in any way, but very matter of fact. As clear as day I heard him say, "You need to break the Union." What???!!! Now I'm not a Civil War buff, but this seems like a pretty meaningful statement, don'tchya think? It was really exciting for me to experience something like this. It wasn't scary or creepy at all. It was intriguing. I think I might be ready to start hunting some ghosts.

Presidents Day Weekend

We left Mecca, CA and took highway 78 across the desert. We literally started at 50 feet above sea level and within a half an hour, we climbed over 4,000 feet in elevation driving through some of the prettiest places I've ever seen. It was crazy going from the desert, where people were wearing next to nothing and riding their 4 wheelers over the holiday weekend, to going up the mountain and seeing people driving with chains on their tires and using their vacation to go skiing and snowboarding in a cute little town called Julian. There's an adorable little town right before that named Banner. It wasn't listed in our Atlas, it was just one of those great finds from taking the back roads. Then after we passed through Julian we started back down the mountain into some very pretty areas. Maybe it seemed so beautiful because it was Spring time. There were green fields full of cows and big red boulders plopped down in the middle of it all. I had never seen anything like it. We drove into Ramona which seemed somewhat elite and fancy, but when I went to use the bathroom at McDonald's they were going to charge me .50 cents. What??? Only in California....

We were actually on or way to L.A. but we took a little detour through San Diego because we wanted to see the house where Jake's dad grew up (also the house that Grandpa Boucher built.) It was still there along with the houses he had built behind it, and the cute river stone wall Grandpa built with his own two hands. The place was empty at the time, and the neighbor asked us if we were looking to rent. We told him our story-- that we just wanted to see Grandpa and Dad's old house. The neighbor didn't seem too impressed and he just went on with his day. Whatever. We enjoyed ourselves.

After that we hung out at the beach for a while and watched surfers. In one day we had driven through the desert, the mountains and then enjoyed the ocean. I guess California really does have it all.... Too bad it costs an arm, a leg and a liver. After the beach we called Dad Boucher to wish him a happy birthday, which was perfect timing after having visited his old stompin' grounds. Then we gave Wal-mart some of our money to get a tire changed on the Subaru. It had worn itself down to the steel. Yes, we added 20,000 miles to our car on this trip!!!! After stupid Wal-mart, we hit the road to Los Angeles. I know this trip has taken me forever to catch up on and blog about, but more is coming :)