Western Excursions - Summer 2010

Hey guys! I know these last two pasts are several days late. I have been travelling about 2/3rds of the way around the world (how often can I say that? tehe) and internet access has been pretty much non-existent. However, good news is: I am successfully off on my next (and sadly last) adventure of this summer! I’ll post more details about it at the end of this post.

So we got to sleep in a little this morning, before heading off again on to the day’s adventures. The morning was mostly spent groggily shuffling down to breakfast, being semi-conscious of eating, and then groggily shuffling back to the room. Did hem my pants though, which made me feel accomplished. And the Momster did some of our laundry which was great. Now I could stand within a 10 foot radius of people again.

Piling into the car, the first stop of the day was Laguna Beach, while I believe is also the title of a teenybopper daytime soap? Hey! Microsoft word didn’t underline teenybopper, recognizing it as a word! Oh that excites me. But yeah. I actually had no idea where we were when we got there, as I was dead to the world on the drive up. But it was pretty. Cold, but pretty. All of Southern Cali was chilly. This was so weird to me.

I also didn’t take any pictures, as I was too busy quite realistically depicting the living dead.

The next stop on our great beach tour was Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, another place that Dad used to live. We spent some time walking along the cutest little boardwalk along the beach (their beach houses were so much cuter than East Coast beach houses) and along the pier.

Three things:

1.       It must not flood ever as all the houses were on ground level.

2.       It was freezing. 70 degrees is not beach weather. The overabundance of bikinis claimed otherwise.

3.       Proclaiming everyone’s eternal damnation has become a family affair. Hiding behind a pillar, I managed to get a shot of one of the daughter’s signs:

Ohhh if I weren’t such a nice person (and some of you can stop laughing), I could have such fun with people like these.

We walked a bit along the pier, where I reached the conclusion that fishing is a bit of a dumb sport. You stand there for hours holding a string with dead meat on it, hoping that some other creature is dumb enough to eat it. Hmmm, I could make some crass political parallel here, but seeing as I am not entirely sure of my audience, I shall refrain...

Hunting down Dad’s old home was quite an adventure, but eventually we found the tiny little house that he shared with…well, an old girlfriend. Haha Dad became remarkably more interested in the McDonald’s they were building nearby when we pressed him for details.

The cool thing about this particular house, was that he was next door neighbors with Peter Gallagher, the actor. He’s the guy who plays the father on the O.C. and is the CIA director in Covert Affairs. Psh yeah.

Since I was flying out of LAX the next morning, we decided to cash in on family hospitality and spend the night at our cousins’, Wayne and Ruth Glass’s, place outside of Los Angeles in Pacific Palacades (I think I spelled that incorrectly). That was also a really long sentence. But yeah, the Glasses were super hospitable and graciously offered up both their home and their fridge to us for the night.

We walked on the beach some with Ruth as you can kind of see in the above (admittedly bad) picture. However, the outside temperature permitted us to do little more that stick our toes in the water and then run screaming to the security of the warm sand.  There were also some really weird piles of rocks on the beach (and what appeared to be a dead goose) which Ruth said was really unusual. Hmm strange. I think I like the East Coast beaches a little bit more. They’re warmer too, which is always a plus.

The evening was spent eating a delicious meal, followed by great conversation. Love it! Unfortunately, I did stay up long after everyone else went to bed, mainly putting together my blog for India (so you better appreciate it. Grr.). However, I did get some sleep which was probably a bad idea considering I’ll be spending the next two days on a plane.

In the morning, we ate another very delicious meal, had more great convos, and I proceeded to try and repack everything I had into as small a space as possible. This is no small feat let me assure you. Wayne was incredibly generous and gave me a very professional looking padfolio (I had been looking for one for a few weeks) AND gave my brothers a USC hat and jersey. How thoughtful was that? :D. Ruth and Wayne also had a guest book for their house that we had to sign, which I thought was the greatest idea. I’m totally going to steal that for my future house. The idea, not their guest book.

Well, this is where I am going to end this blog. I’m going to pick up right where I left off in my next blog, the India one. Since I can’t just end with a ‘see ya, see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya’ taunt that my inner kindergartener is tempted to leave, I shall put in a brief reflective summary:

Overall, this was a great trip, allowing me to visit places I’ve never been and see things I haven’t seen. I got to horseback ride in the Rockies, spit into the Grand Canyon, gamble in Vegas, climb through cacti in San Diego, battle traffic in Los Angeles, stick my feet in the Pacific, and spend more time cramped in small places with my family than most college students would ever hope for.

But my favorite part by far was getting to spend an extended weekend with my extended family. I loved getting to talk to everyone, remeet everyone, hear the cool things people are doing, everything. You can travel all over the world, see all the amazing sights, but in the end, what really matters are the people you meet and build connections to. That is what is most meaningful.

 At least to me. My boundless wisdom I have accrued here in my numerous years on this planet hardly qualifies me to speak for everyone else.

But yeah, here is where I leave you guys. The rest of the fam is travelling up the coast to San Francisco to see the cool sights like Alcatraz, Monterey Aquarium, etc etc. Kinda bummed I’m missing out on it. Ah well. Can’t have everything. I was going to have one of them continue this blog, but as is always the case, we ran out of time. I will add their pictures though once they get back.

That being said, if you haven’t seen all the pictures from this trip already, here they are at:

Also, if you are interested in reading a little about my India trip, feel free to follow my adventures at http://indianglimpses2010.blogspot.com/. Or at least glance out it, cuz I am rather fond of this design.

Onward and upward :)