Home Is Wherever I'm With You.

The drive through the west was beautiful, something we look forward to doing again soon. Maybe with an old airstream or even a pop-up in tow. There were several places to stop and camp, the old meteorite site would be cool or maybe the petrified forrest. The Grand Canyon was among them, but would have been 3 hours round trip out of the way. So we stopped at a gas station and showed our little disappointed monkeys a post card with a cheesy photo of it. Bella said "That's it?". We said said, "That's it. Now you've seen it." They were fine skipping it at that point. Not sure what she thought it was all about, but a big gigantic hole in the ground was not it. Next time, we'll camp there or drive up through Colorado and do some camping. Driving into to LA was crazy. TRAFFIC. That's all I can say. We stayed in Venice Beach (which was way more bazaar than we thought it would be), but we loved being so close to everything and the neighborhood we stayed in used to house Julia Roberts and Molly Ringwald. We took the kids down to Santa Monica Pier and there was a celebrity event that night so the rides were shut down. I was a bit relieved b/c I kind of mentioned I would get on the trapeze and swing like a crazy person. Darn, missed that opportunity! I think that night on the pier, the fog started rolling in and it dropped down to the low 50's. Crazy, sunny California was not all that sunny and warm in August this year. It was a nice break from the 104 degrees we had in Oklahoma. We went to a beach in Malibu one day, visited Huntington Beach for the US Open of Surfing, took the kids to Disneyland (most fun EVER), stayed in Beverly Hills, saw a concert on Sunset Blvd at the Viper Room (used to be owned by Johnny Depp), went to the Original Farmer's Market in West Hollywood, window shopped at the Grove, saw Rodeo Drive, went to a few vintage stores in West Hollywood and Venice, bought our groceries at the best Whole Foods in the world (I hate ours now), watched a drum circle on Venice Beach (and took in the sights and the smells that we were not ready to explain to our youngin's so we promptly vacated), shopped on Abbot Kinney Blvd and bought cupcakes from Cupcakes A Go Go, ate In-n-Out like 5 times (which I'm hankering for right now), hung out with Eric (who drove down from Modesto) for 5 days which was the icing on the cake for us, picked a lime off a tree in the backyard of the hills rental, got stuck in traffic, bought absolutely nothing except for food and a few sweaters cause' did I mention it was cold?, and had an amazing time together. We basked in the beauty of each other, the time we had each and everyday to wake up together, wondering what new and exciting thing that day would bring. Each day was exciting, new, and composed, filled with no expectations other than enjoying the new scenery surrounding us, together. We left there refreshed, sad to be going home, in reverence of the beauty that we came from and dreaming of what our next adventure west would be like. It was THE best vacation we have ever had together, but only for now. There will be many more to come. For now though, I'm glad to be home, where our family and friends are.