Traveling Domestic

The last week in September I hopped a super cheap Allegiant flight to California.  I flew from Idaho Falls to LA, rented a car, drove to San Luis Obispo and spent the night there.  Then the next morning I headed up the 101, making a short stop to visit my long lost high school friend and blog reader, Kirsten.  

We played soccer together for Rigby High School.  We sucked.  

Anyway, it was fun to catch up and visit and for me to learn all about Kirsten's place of residence, Greenfield, CA, which may as well be called Campo Verde, California because it is pretty much a little piece of Mexico, right in California...in fact 90ish% of its population is Hispanic.  

The electronic marquee at the school where Kirsten's kid attends is in Spanish...only in Spanish as far as I could tell.  I didn't want to stick around too long though to see if it would change to English...snapping photos while sitting in a rental car outside an elementary school might be seen as freaky.  I just don't know if "Yo soy un blogger...les prometo!" would be a good enough explanation for why I was taking pictures of the school marquee.  So, I moved on quickly.  

It seems that only Hispanics dare/care to run for office.  

Anyway, Greenfield was an interesting little podunk town to visit and it was fun to see Kirsten after all these years.  

Then I headed up to Palo Alto, stopping at the outlet mall in Gilroy to try to find some new clothes... particularly church clothes.  But, I was unsuccessful and all I left with was messed up, staticy hair.  Sad.

I got to Palo Alto Friday night and met up with my friend, travel buddy, and former mission companion Katie.  (She's the one I traveled in England, Turkey, Norway, and Switzerland with this past Spring.)   

We grabbed some dinner at a nice little Italian place that was supposed to have amazing ñoquis, but they ran out before we got any.  Dang.  Ñoquis are my favorite.  

The next morning Katie and I, as well as Katie's friend Danielle, who I got to know and travel with a bit while she and Katie were working in London, all headed to San Fransisco for the day.  

We had breakfast/brunch/lunch at Mama's.  It was delicious.  

Then we just toured San Fran.  

A view

A gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I've always wondered why it isn't golden though.  That would have been a nice touch.  

P.S., did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge is the world's number one suicide spot?  Weird/sad, huh?  

The weather was gorgeous...actually quite hot for the end of September.  There wasn't a bit of fog covering our view.  

Me, Danielle, Katie, and a really annoyed girl (because she had to wait for 10 seconds while we snapped a picture) at the super crooked part of Lombard Street, a typical tourist stop.  

Katie and I after we took a sweaty hike up to a viewpoint of the bay.  The view was worth the sweat.  

Me

We three

Anyway, Katie, Danielle, and I hung out all day in San Fransisco but for some reason I didn't take many more pictures.  Maybe I felt too sweaty and gross.  I can't remember.  

Sunday Katie and I took a long and winding road up into the Santa Cruz mountains where her ward was holding church since they'd had a ward camp-out that weekend.  I doubt that is really legit per the Church Handbook of Instructions, but whatever, who am I to say.  Besides, having church in the middle of a Redwood grove is pretty spectacular, except for those hard wooden benches.  I lost all power to concentrate on anything other than my tail-bone after about one hour.  Too bad I didn't have a doughnut pillow with me. 

After church, Katie and I went over to Danielle's house where we all cooked a delicious dinner together.  

Then Katie and I went to the rebroadcast of the Relief Society General Broadcast.  I'll be honest.  I usually try and avoid going to that meeting.  I like to screen the talks myself from the privacy of my own home and just read or listen to the ones that I want to.  I know.  I'm a brat.  I just have a low tolerance for exclamation points and bragging about perfect children. 

But, it was actually quite good this year.  I'm not saying I'm going to make going a habit, but I will admit there were some very good talks.  

Monday morning I headed to the Stanford mall for several hours of shopping.  I figured I'd have better luck in California then in Idaho to find some decent clothes, but I still didn't have too much luck.  More messed up, staticy hair.  

I just hate shopping for clothes.  I hope we have uniforms in heaven because I just don't think any place where you have to go shopping for clothes could be considered heaven.  But, I also feel that heaven won't be heaven for me unless it is dog free and I know that lots of people feel the opposite and I'm not sure how they're going to work all that out.  Maybe there will be dog and non-dog sections...like smoking or non-smoking tables.  I'm really hoping we can all come to a consensus on the uniform thing though.  But not ugly ones like MoTab outfits or anything.  

Anyway, after I'd had as much of the mall as I could take I drove over to Half Moon Bay and began my journey down Highway 1.  

For some weird reason I've always wanted to drive all of Highway 1, or all of the whole coast of the Western United States if I had the chance.  

I guess it's just something I heard about and decided I would do at some point in life. So, I decided that now was as good a time as any to get started on it.  

That first day I drove from Half Moon Bay to Monterey, where I stayed for the night.  I was just driving and driving and driving to get to Monterey and I was so hungry but kept passing places thinking that something more delicious would come along but finally when I got to Seaside (which is basically part of Monterey) I was so hungry that I made a desperate choice and went to Taco Bell, which isn't one of my first choices.  

Well, to make a long story short, Taco Bell became Taco Hell, as I spent the rest of the night ralphing up my taco.  Yup, food poisoning.  

How is it that I have eaten street food, salads, and strawberries in Africa, Central and South America, as well as the sketchy parts of Europe and Asia and have always come out okay, but one little taco from Seaside, CA could wipe me out?  Seriously.  

Anyway, the next morning I walked around Monterey a bit and then got on the road and headed down Highway 1.  

The views were gorgeous.  It was so hot that it was almost a little hazy but it was really pretty.  

Another view.

More Highway 1 scenery.  

I stopped by Hearst Castle.  It was pretty stinking awesome.  I thought I wouldn't be too impressed because I've seen some pretty cool castles in my day, but this one was just so interesting because it was so over the top and crazy and had artwork and even whole rooms from all over the world.  And William Randolph Hearst, the builder of Hearst Castle, was a little bit crazy...and slightly crazy people fascinate me.  

Here's a view of Hearst Castle which overlooks the ocean.  

I think the pools were my favorite...great views, Roman or Greek or whatever ruins, marble statues from Italy...just completely over the top.  

The indoor pool was super cool too.  I just didn't get a very good picture of it.  William Randolph Hearst originally had plans for the indoor pool to be salt water and have sharks and crocodiles and other scary things swimming on the other side of a glass partition from the humans.  That gave me the creeps because I used to have nightmares of swimming in a pool like that.  

I drove pretty much all the way down highway 1 to LA where I flew back to good old ID.  The picture above is Morro Bay.  


Anyway, it was a good trip.  It was nice to see some of California besides LA/San Diego or the very north near the Oregon border, which are the only parts of California I'd been to before this trip.  And, I really liked Northern California and the Central California Coast...it's definitely better than Southern California, in my humble opinion.