home and don't know what to do...
besides sit around in my nyammies and look at pictures of my trip. and oh boy are there pictures! on my camera alone there were over 300. hehheh, nervous laugh. i shouldn't say my camera, because a couple of days before the trip i broke my precious. ironically it was caution that killed it. i had the strap on my wrist in case i dropped it and i was really tired and after taking the picture i went to put my precious on my dresser (i was sitting on my bed), forgetting about the safety stap measure, and it caught on my wrist where it was looped and went shwoop in the air and landed on the open lens. horror and sorrow were the two strongest feelings when i realized that i broke it. i mean, the camera works, but sumthin is definitely wrong in the lens and it takes blurry far away pictures. so i try not to dwell on how sad that makes me--i try to think about how i'll get it fixed.
elicia leant me hers for the trip to cali which was a pretty spectacular thing for her to do because a big part of this vacation was taking clicks of anything and everything if you know what i mean, and i think you do. you probably really really do.
i'm not going to write the WHOLE trip down because that just seems too enormous of a task at this point in time, so these are some of the highlights for your reading pleasure beyone measure:
1. the travel log. the travel log is not really a highlight, but i'm making it one, and i'm the boss of my own blog so i can. the travel log is something my, if you pardon my boasting, genious (i'm so genious i can't think of how to spell genious!), self thought up two years ago when karey, dawn and i went on a road trip to california and las vegas. i brought a big note book and made note of anything of interest and lots of non-interest and the times at which they occured. like where we stopped for gas and the people we met and what we saw etc. just little particulars. and karey and i did a travel log for our road trip to alberta too, last summer and so i brought the same notebook on this trip too. at first heather was a little resistant to the whole travel log. it was early when we left vancouver and overcast and we both had little sleep and i was driving and telling her to write things down in the notebook. eg. " 6:51am Heather gives Laura the "stink eye" because she told her to write down that she saw a crushed garbage an @ the side of the road. (Heather from a distance, thought it was a lrg bird)" well you too may have given me the stink eye in that moment, but i was just trying to teach her the principles of notebooking. actually, during the first travel log, karey thought i was odd too, but she like heather after her, became converts to the travel log.
2. i forgot the bran buds. the bran buds were essential in our breakfast plans and i left them at work on top the freezer. that's where i keep them because for some reason i always eat breakfast at work. this is beside the point of course, but heather was counting on the bran buds to go in the yoghurt she provided and i failed, FAILED.
3. militant border guard. when we arrived at the border, there were only three cars ahead of us in line, yet it took us around 15 minutes to get through because the border guard was basically crazy. when it was finally our turn (another line had opened since we got there and people were whizzing through it) we came face to face with a crazy border guard. he had tatoos extending from both his forearms up into his sleeves, who knows where they ended! and he totally reminded me of zeezrom. not that i've met zeezrom, but zeezrom was recorded trying to trip up amulek in his words and that's what this dude was totally trying, but i didn't call him on it like amulek did. it started out with normal questions like where were we going, "california" i said. and that's when his crazy side started coming out. he brought up this concert going on in california and he quizzed me on it again and again, with rapid fire questions "so you're going to a concert in california" (i never said any such thing) me--no we don't know anything about a concert. "you've heard about the concert but you don't have enough money" me--no, we didn't know about the concert. "how come you're not going to the concert?" me--we're doing other things. doubtful "like what?" me--like going to the beach! "so you know about the concert but you're not going." me--no we didn't know about the concert. a couple more concert questions. "how long are you staying in california?" me--a week. "how come you aren't going longer?" me--that's all the time we get off. "where do you work, how much vacation do you get, how much money do you have, do you have a credit card, where are you staying, where did you go to school and for what, when did you get this car? how long have you had this car?" it just went on and on and then he tapped the side of my car and checked the trunk and gave me back the keys and said "have a good time." what a looney bin! i was pretty calm throughout and actually thought it was kind of funny how he kept fixating on the concert. i thought he probably wanted to go to the concert himself. heather theorized that he was bitter at the world because he was getting a divorce and mine was that he either was in the army or wanted to be in the army.
4. i am caught speeding in the everett coriador. a motorcycle cop pulled me over in the HOV lane for doing 73 in a 60 zone. this was my first ticket since i was 17. i wanted to be mad at the cop but he was really nice and reduced my ticket because i slowed down to 65 right away and didn't double it even though it was in a road work zone. so i owe 71 dollars or something. i wish it had happened in oregon or california where i'm not likely to be driving once a month. but oh well.
5. heather drives an amazing 7 hour stretch. this is amazing because heather told me that after driving two hours she gets highway hypnosis and i was prepared to do a large chunk of all the driving. we crossed into california at 5:40pm and heather did a triple honk and we cheered. after driving down mount shasta, or another mountain near mount shasta (we were never quite clear on this) we stopped to take pictures.
6. we narrowly escape sleeping with the rattlers. at eight thirty it was starting to get dark, so we began looking for a camp site. this was harder than you might think, if you are like me and believe that there are camp sites littering the california hwys. the first sign we saw was the Alamo RV site in a small place called cottonwood. as we drove to the alamo, we noticed the neighbourhood was very sketchy and the RV site smelled like pot to me. luckily there was no tent camping there. so we drove on. we saw another sign and pulled off the highway a little further on. this place was closed at 5. i saw on the map that there were tent sites, so i said to heather "let's just set up and pay in the morning when they're open." heather was balking, not being into doing things that might not be allowed. just then a man stepped around the corner of an RV and asked us if we needed something. we told him we were looking for a tent site and she said "well,... i wouldn't tent here this time of the year. the only sites are down by the river and there's snakes." heather lets out a guffaw beside me and chokes out "snakes?" "yeah, rattlers." says the man. well that was all we needed to hear. it was dark now and we were starting to doubt that we'd find a place. the guy thought there might be a place further down the hwy, so we got on the i5 again and it was then that i realized that the sings for tenting sits were brown, with a tent picture on it. because i saw one. and we veered off the highway and found a lovely site at red bluff called sycamore grove. it was quiet and pretty with long grasses, soft ground and big trees. you could hear loud choruses of crickets and you could see the stars.
we picked a spot and went back to pay the money (only 12 dollars!) and a type of golf cart all zippered up in plastic came upon us with almost no noise. it was the cute elderly couple who ran the site. he got out but she stayed behind the plastic in her slippers and nightie writing on her clipboard. we gave him our reciept and he gave us the code for the bathrooms. then we put up the tent in the dark. putting up a tent in the dark is something a clarke is apt to do, so it wasn't a big deal. we used the light from the car.
after we were all done we got ready for bed in the bathroom and then sat outside our tent and i read from alma 17 by the light of my bike light that i brought instead of a flashlight, which i don't own. i slept on four thin 'foamies' (they hardly qualify) but it was just like sleeping on one. in the morning my hips and shoulders on both sides were sore, but i was alright. heather has an airmattress so she was comfy which is good because she is the princess and the pea afterall.
the birds woke us up early with their noisy warbling. it sounded like a billion of them were sitting right over our head singing their hearts out. but i ignored them and tried to sleep longer. sometime around 7 i got up and did my thing, then we explored a little bit. sycamore grove was right on the edge of a river. we walked over to it just in time to see four of our countrymen (ie. canadian geese) fighting in the river. well they weren't really fighting but two of the geese were chasing off the other two, honking loudly while they swooped towards them. the other two yelled back but kept their distance.
7. euphoria and tuna sandwiches for breakfast. the next day was beautiful and sunny and everything was beautiful and wonderful and even the tuna sandwiches we had for breakfast were the best thing we ever had. we had such a feeling of euphoria that you would not believe. i mean i was so happy i felt like i could cry at any minute. i pointed out our euphoria to heather and we laughed about it. we decided that we both had needed a vacation very badly.
8. birds. we saw a lot of birds. from oregon all the way to southern california there was almost a constant sighting of what we assume were hawks in the sky. sometimes there were as many as 8 all flying together. we had no idea that we would be driving through hawk country. the sky was thick with them! we also caught glimpses of these beautiful white long necked birds that i am guessing was a crane of some sort. (i just looked it up and it looks like we may have seen whooping cranes!)
9. burned my driving arm. and burned it good. so now i have a slightly tanned left arm and a much darker right arm. what can you do? i have no air conditioning and drove through all of california with my window rolled down.
9a. road kill count. one new feature of the travel log is the road kill talley. road kill total for the trip down: 16
10. arrived at auntie sherry's minutes before karey and vicki. it was so nice to arrive. it took us two hours to drive across los angeles. karey and vicki didn't think we'd be arriving until later and were on their way to the mall when i called. but they turned around and we had a reunion in front of auntie sherry's house where no one was home. we decided to abandon my car and pile into vicki's air condtioned one and find somewhere to eat. so we went to in and out burger which karey really loves. i love all the choice at in and out. hamburger, cheeseburger or a double cheeseburger, or something like that. then we went to karey's other favourite place, target. she bought some clothes and we looked around because all of our clothes money was spent. (there were no nice hoodies for elicia, which i was on the look out for). then we went back to auntie sherry's and watched survivor with christina who is now 15 and a babe. heather made the mistake of asking uncle rick about his snakes and birds and as that is his passion he began to tell us all about it just when the show was coming on. but i didn't mind missing some of it because his animals are so cool. we slept on double air mattresses in the playroom (right next door to the animal room) karey and heather were asleep when i came to bed and were snoring in harmony. sometime in the night i awoke momentarily and heard vicki's darth vader like breathing. everyone had stories about hearing everyone else's snoring. pretty funny.
11. my birthday. my birthday was such a perfect day. in the morning when i was looking spiffy, i opened my presents from karey. one of my presents was in an incredible hulk gift bag. my favourite!! karey got me such good gifts and they just kept coming. she got me some sheets which, i don't think you know, i needed in a desperate way. my red jersey sheets were sporting some pretty ugly holes. and i got a make-up case, and this really nice covergirl mascara that i really like, and lip glosses galore, and sun screen testers, and VEET, which i was very excited about, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand a cute beach bag that i took to the beach that very day.
we had raisin toast for breakfast. vicki made mine for me. no one let me do anything that day. after karey helped auntie sherry with her ipod and we all were sun screened and ready to go. (it's debatable how sunscreened karey was with her partial 4 covering, but that's just the way she is and after 9 years of knowing her, i should be used to it).
we stopped at albertson's on the way to buy food for lunch. i got a turkey bacon cheddar wrap and some potato salad along with a huge bottle of water, an orange and a banana. other people bought similar things.
the beach:
we went to san clemente beach. it was a beautiful sunny hot day, with the temperatures in the mid twenties. the beach wasn't too busy and we set up our stuff (auntie sherry had the handiest beach cart that fit the umbrella, the beach chairs and everything in it.) and took off for the water with our boogie boards. the waves were big. you can't slowly inch in at this beach. people like katie and sarah would particularily have rude awakenings. we handled the shock of it all by screaming. it was sooo fun. sigh. we screamed and laughed and jumped the waves and were thrown about and rode the waves and were thrown down by the waves. the waves were so violent and karey's bathing suit barely stayed on her. i rode this one wave all the way to shore and it threw me down on this soft dip with loose pebbles and scraped up my legs. heather scraped her elbow in the same spot. the soft dip is a bad place to be caught by the pounding waves because you can't get a good stance, it's all loose stuff. that's where i lost my toe ring two years before, but this time i took it off and put it in my tin of cinnimon alltoid gum. everyone thought that that was a gross thing to do for some reason, but it seemed perfectly fine to me, i don't know why. i can see why it would gross people out, but my toes just seemed clean to me. at least i didn't have to share my gum after that. :)
anyways, after exhausting ourselves in the waves, we came in and sat on the beach chairs. mine had a squishy pillow for my head that i liked. we ate our lunch and sun bathed (i just tried to cover up my burnt driving arm). then karey and i went for a walk down the beach and took pictures. karey was pretty much the hottest babe on the beach and the pictures reveal this very thing.
when we got back vicki and heather had gone exploring in the opposite direction. we sat with auntie sherry (blissing out to her ipod tunes) and ate salt and vinegar chips. when vicki and heather came back vicki shared with us her sand exfoiliation technique. after enough sun bathing we decided to hit the waves again. we really wanted to get past the breakers. it was me and karey and heather. we were a little reluctant at first because we were finally dry, but we felt like we couldn't lose this opportunity, so we went, and we were glad we did. getting past the breakers is a hard thing to do, because all these big waves keep rolling in and pushing you back. that's when i remembered blue crush and how she dove under the waves so that's what i did. it worked too. at first karey and i were ahead of heather and we kept yelling "heeeeeaaaaaaaaaaather!!" and laughing, but then just as heather caught up, i had my back turned to the open ocean and was floating with my boogie board talking to karey who was facing me. all of a sudden she got this "woah" look on her face and i turn around just as the hugest wave is coming down on me. i got under it, but karey got carried far far away by it. like we couldn't see her except on the swell of some big wave we'd see her head bob up. it was so funny for some reason. it took her a long time to get back to us, but she finally did it and then we played around out there for a while during which time i felt very euphoric again and felt like i couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday. i just felt so happy. i was all "thanks for sharing my birthday with me guys." then the life guard on a seadoo came by to tell us that a rip tide was pulling us and to "kick that way a bit". so we did, but it was tiring and eventually we let the waves carry us in to shore where we quickly scrambled out before a crasher could trap us on the pebbles. one wave hit us so hard that it plastered the skirt of my bathing suit to my shoulder, and pulled down heather's shorts while lifting up her top at the same time. she was laughing soo hard. i love heather's cackle sometimes.
we stopped at trader joe's on the way home. as karey pointed out, there are so many places named after joe in california. he's a popular guy. trader joe's is a grocery store that is like a smaller whole foods. same types of things, but no big yummy eating place. auntie sherry wanted to get my birthday cheesecake there. we were all, how could this cheesecake be so good, but we have to be forgiven because we're ignorant cannucks.
the dinner:
back at the zimmerman zoo, we all showered and everyone else helped with dinner. i wasn't allowed, and i actually wouldn't have minded chopping some peppers for the salad or setting the table or something. it's what i do every day after all. we had a bbq of tri tip steaks. it is soooooooooooo good. i mean tri tip steaks is about the best steak ever. i have to ask dad what that cut is in canada. anyways while we were waiting for the steaks to bbq, we sat around in the sun and green of sherry's back yard. they have this outside fire oven thing, surrounded by green and a little fountain and the sun was shining in and it felt very idealic after such a perfect day at the beach. we lounged and vicki and curtis played a challenging game of connect four. then it was time for the zimmerman zoo show. first of all the mackaws and parrot and other birds were out and then uncle rick's newts which he let go in their yard made an appearance on the grape vine arbour thing and then we found a 'blue belly' lizzard of some sort on the wall and uncle rick caught it for us and we took pictures with it. curtis brought out his stick bug and brian brought out his toad. and i clicked away. it was cool.
when supper was ready we ate outside at the picnic table. besides the steak, we had baked potatoes chopped up ( i dipped mine in ranch dressing as did others, i noticed) corn, and a delicious salad and pink lemonade. we basically stuffed ourselves beyond belief. i told everyone about my corn nibblet teeth and put a piece of corn on my tooth to show how there is no difference. grossed everyone out again. then came the trader joe's cheesecake with fresh strawberry topping and 33 candles. the cheesecake was delicious. it had cinnimon sprinkled on top and it was dense and thick.
the conference:
after supper we got ready to go to the conference. after babing ourselves up vicki drove. she thankfully drove the whole time. after the huntington beach exit we saw the ali baba hotel. it had a gold pointed dome and looked like a midle eastern palace. we could have stayed there i pointed out. we agreed that next time we would. it turned out that every time we drove past the ali baba, we pointed it out and sometimes sang "prince ali, fabulous he, ali ababwa..." then we saw a restaurant called NORMS. open all night and had a sign advertizing 'broiled steaks'. norms also became a landmark for us as well as the tahitian inn motel, the ginormous 99cent store and my personal favourite, 'placentia ave'. when i first pointed it out to the rest i wondered if they had an 'umbilical ave' or amniotica pl' or anything of the like. i'm sure placentia must mean something, but to me it means the pancake like thing a baby is connected to for nutrients and what is birthed after the baby is out, the thing that is aptly also named 'the afterbirth'.
anyways we drove past the chapel on atanta where the function was being held and saw a line up out the door and around the corner of people registering. oh great we groaned. some people had to pee, like heather, and had ibs flare ups, like karey, so we decided to take care of that first. so we were turning around on this road to a apartment complex or something and karey opens her door and says "hi, sarah." and who should be walking across that very road but sarah burnham herself! it was so weird how we ran into her first thing. she hopped in with us so she could do her make-up while the you know whos did their you know whats.
when we made it back and parked on the road a little ways down fron the church, we joined the line. it looked like we might be there a long time because the line was barely moving. but then it started to move very quickly and people were coming down the line giving out bags, asking if we had tags yet and yadda yadda. when it was my turn to be asked it turnedo out that i wasn't on the list. the girl asked me to follow her. i felt nervous being seperated from my friends especially into the mix of over 1000 people. she led me through the dance where i noticed lots of people, smoke and lights, and video displays, down a hall to another hall and to a room. "go in there and she'll help you." she said and left. there was a lot of other people there too and i felt bewildered. i crept into the room and waited. a cheerful capable brunette was dealing with the problems in that room. she dealt with me first. she looked up my email and got me a reciept to show that i paid and then asked some girl in a white pant suit (who was not a volunteer) to take me back to the line. this girl was almost as bewildered as me. she ended up taking me to this very annoying girl who said to me "walk with me and tell me what you need because that's what you need to do." i passed my friends who were just getting in and told them not to lose me. the girl was pushing me in front of her as she walked. i did not like this. she wasn't paying much attention to me, just pushing me along until the very end where i got a tag from a guy and then got my bag and program and a yellow wrist band that we were to wear the whole time, and finally got back to my friends.
heather needed to put her stuff in the coat check so we walked through the building (HUGE) looking at all the different rooms, squeezing past the crowds of peeps. heather put her stuff in the coat check but gave me her wad of money and credit card to put in my pocket. then we walked in to the dance. it was really croweded and some of us did not feel warmed up to being there. as we walked in this guy in the crowd was staring right at me. i thought it was weird but ignored him, ie. did not make eye contact. we stood in there for a while and decided we would get warmed up by playing some games in the game room. so we were walking out and we had to pass the staring guy and he reached out and touched my arm so i had to look at him and he said "are you too shy to say hi to me?". that's kind of like a dare, don't you think? "i'm not too shy." i said and smiled. "hi." "hello," he said and shook my hand. "i'm ronald." "laura." i answerd. he squinted "nora or laura?" he asked. it was really loud in there, i mean it was a dance after all. "with an L" i told him. he began to say something else in my ear, but i interrupted, seeing vicki and karey standing against the wall by the door waiting for me. "my friends are waiting for me, we're going to play games." "are you going to invite me?" asked ronald. "sure, if you want to." i shrugged. "this is ronald." i told the girls as i passed them into the hall with ronald on my heels. so ronald came with us but he didn't really want to play games. he wanted to salsa, and as soon as we were in the room he was trying to get me to go dance. luckily sarah was there and she wanted to dance too. so she went and salsaed with ronald.
we played 80s trivial pursuit. you wouldn't believe how hard it was. i didn't know anything. while we were setting up this girl and guy came by and showed some interest. we asked them if they wanted to play. at first the guy who turned out to be ted, said no, but when the girl was into it, she got him to sit down too. i said to the girl "hi my name is laura." "hiiii! how are you!" she said all enthusiastically. then she looked down at her chest. "do i have a name tag on or something?" "umm no.." we answered. "how did you know my name?" she asked. hahahaha. we laughed. "no! MY name is laura!" we answered. her name was laura too, obviously. but she said it the american way, the way leif used to say it. laura that rhymes with far-a (my laura rhymes with bora). she was kind of spacy at times but very nice and chatty. it turned out that she knew karrie farthing. (i forget how to spell her kary.)
after a while an enthusiatic guy named ryan came in and was like "woah games! i didn't know there were games! if i knew there were games i'd have been in here all night!" "do you wanna play?" i asked him. "you can be on our team." and that was all he needed. he pulled up a seat in between me and vicki. he said his name was ryan-the-ringer. he was so funny. he remembered the weirdest things like what channel a show in the eighties was on or other such things. he was also easily distracted into other topics, often brought up by laura-far-a who wasn't much into the game as much as she was talking.
the game became tedious because no one knew anything so whenever someone got something right, we gave them a pie, and heather especially gave clues. another girl came and joined us, but i never learned her name. she was on laura-far-a and ted's team. she was fun though. after a while ted heard his mom calling him but laura made him stay until someone won, which incedentially was them. he left and a guy named eric joined us. we just sat around and talked and asked each other questions from the game that we thought we would know. eric was very confident at first. "ask me ten sports and leisure questions. i guaruntee that i'll get at least 6 out of 10" he told nonamegirl. she obliged but eric only knew one. eric started telling jokes. i only remember one and that's because of karey and vicki's reactions to it. "want to know a dirty racist joke?" asked eric. "a marathoner fell into a mud puddle." vicki and karey had blank looks on their faces (i found out later that they didn't hear the beginning of the joke.) "a racist! get it! haha!" i said pretending to laugh. well when they got it, they just killed themselves laughing and that joke set them off any time it was brought up the whole weekend. i think it was very gratifying to eric. ryan the ringer told a joke that didn't make any sense. ronald came in and tried to get me to dance again. i wasn't into it. ted came back in too. oh yeah! we were waiting for barb to show up. she was driving herself from the airport, a fact that made us nervous for her, and it turned out that she got lost. she phoned karey who gave the phone to eric who gave her directions. so when barb showed up we left soon after. eric followed barb and sarah out and hugged them. little did we know that eric was after the hugs. then he came back and as we were walking down the hall he sideways hugged vicki and then me (we were the last two in the trek down the hall), he added to me that it was my birthday hug. that's the last we saw of eric the joker, or at least that i saw. i'm bad at picking people out of a crowd and this was a huge crowd. karey felt that eric jipped her and heather in the hug department. "apparently he didn't want to hug me or heather." she said. haha.
we got home around 1 and went to bed
12. the strange man in the truck. the next morning we were on our way to huntington beach beach to do our service project of picking up litter. we had parked down the road and were walking down to the beach when a truck with american flags waving from every corner pulled over. the music was pumping and an old man was inside. he just leaned towards us and bopped his head to the music. i was waiting for him to say something or ask directions or something, but he didn't. he did however, choose a teddybear from amongst a row of stuffed animals sitting on the bench beside him, picked it up and moved it back and forth to the music. i gave him the thumbs up sign and we moved on. what the? karey was reaching for her camera but she was too late. he had similarily stopped a group in front of us so we thought he might be someone from the conference. nope. just a nutbar.
13. vicki excells at garbage collection. it was cold and cloudy with a heavy 'marine layer' that didn't burn off until late afternoon. we were all equipped with our plastic gloves (the loose sandwich gloves, not the snug latex kind) and a white garbage bag, and set loose on the beach. we met the bishop of the huntington beach 1st ward (host ward) while we were waiting to get our bag. he's been to vancouver and knows how beautiful it is, so we liked him. he goes heli skiing above pemberton or something like that. he also showed off his knowledge of the word 'toque.' anyways while we were picking up garbage on what seemed like miles of beach, and there was a lot to pick up, especially styrofoam, karey and i noticed that vicki was always ahead of us. we decided that she always went ahead and only picked up the big things so her bag would fill up faster, leaving the mini, itsy bitsy stuff for us. we decided to get ahead of her. when we caught up she told her her strategy. always find stuff full of sand she instructed. ie. a bottle, ie. a plastic bag... we found some dead birds but no one would put them in their bag. i found a flip flop and so did karey. vicki found at least 4 tennis balls. i found a gi joe. tons of bottle caps. it really bugs me that people litter on such a beautiful place like that beach. go litter at the land fill instead! :) it also bugs me that a huge factory is basically right at the beach. i saw a lot of that in california. but at the same time right by the factory and beach would be a wild life reserve for erns or something.
there was supposed to be breakfast at the beach but there was none. as we were leaving a guy came by on a bicycle pulling a trailor full of granola bars. "did you guys get breakfast?" he asked. "no!!" we answered in unison. "awww, take two then, because that's basically four because there's two in each." he said strangely enthusiastically for a man who's offering people granola bars for breakfast at ten thirty in the morning. but we weren't too proud. we grabbed some and the guy that was with him said in what we found was his typical condescendingish manner (he was one of the organizers, matt) "ok. happy now? ok. appreciate it." " 'preshiate you!" i called after him. as we walked back this girl with an ultra thick curtain of brown curls ran past us. we caught up to her at the light. then she ran across. then we caught up to her at the next light. then she ran across. she kept running. maybe that's how she stays so thin we mused.
14. crabby's boathouse. we decided to eat in downtown huntington beach. it was the cutest little area ever. we found crabby's almost right away and decided to eat there. barb and sarah came with us too. we sat outside on crabby's patio, i don't know why but it was a lot of fun. i can't think of a single particular reason, but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless. the portions turned out to be enormous. i had a spicy seafood bisque in a bread bowl. it had calamar, shrimp and muscles in it and it was soooooooooooooo good. i was sad that i couldn't finish it and i valiantly tried because there was so much good stuff left but i couldn't. hardly anyone could finish theirs. there was sand all over the floor at crabby's and a guy on a skate board rolled by while we were there. that's what kind of place this is, said karey (i think)
15. kyaking. after crabby's we were a little late for kyaking so we decided to skip meeting at the school and go straight to the kyak place. we got a little lost getting out of huntington down town and we were low on gas and vicki was getting peevish. we were all a little crabby and tired actually. at the gas station vicki was mad at the guy who made her leave her credit card with him, meanwhile we saw all these amazing cars, like lambourginis, and corvettes and this stunning but it turned out we were almost the first ones to the kyaking place. once we were out on the water we started to feel better and the sun finally came out. heather liked the guy helping us to get our pfd's even though she had to tell him that she was too 'voluptuous' for hers. "i'm kind of big...." awkward. i was the first one out on the water and the guy made me get in, in the water, which i've never done before, but it went alright. kyaking was fun but there were so many people and we were going through narrow water ways that it often got hairy. our guide kept stopping us too, so everyone could catch up, which was good, i guess, excpet then you had to navigate out of a jumble of kyakers and people ramming into you and so on. vicki had a scare when she thought it was me coming up behind her and it wasn't and she almost tipped. she didn't tip, but she splarshed herself good. she was particularily keen on staying dry too. we went by all these big and beautiful rich people houses. apparently famous people live there, but no one told us who. then we kyaked by these birds and crabs and things and fishermen. it actually wasn't that long, but it was fun. one guy tipped over. a girl and a cute guy who was a very good kyaker helped him back in. karey gave him back his paddle. i never found out why he tipped but it wasn't because i didn't ask. no one seemed to know. when we pulled in under the bridge at the end, i pulled into the mud, thinking it was sand. i asked these girls to help me get out. they were really nice and both mucked up their flip flops, losing them in the mud to help me. i left mine and helped karey carry (karey carry! haha!) hers up to the top. "do you want to go back for yours?" she asked. "nahh. that's their job." i said without a shred of guilt.
16. Larry Bigsbee. and the larry bigsbee band. saturday night larry and his band played for us. larry was in walk the line or something. i didn't get how or who, but he was in it. but before larry we had to do one of those dumb getting to know you things where you get a list and go around and find people who fit it, like "i have more than six people in my family" "i grew up outside of the us" etc. i'm never into those kinds of things, but it was kind of fun in the end. karey and i met a lot of interesting people. i met a guy who agreed to say his birthday was in april, but it was in june, but i needed someone for the someone with the same birth month as you. happy birthday i told him as we looked for our next victim. we saw ted with the running girl, he signed the "i've ridden a motorcycle." one on mine. he had a cast on, but i didn't hear why. karey was really into getting her whole thing signed so she could be a winner. but she turned out to be the seventh, so she got nothing. back to larry, vicki particularily took a shine to larry. vicki rae bigsbee. larry and his band were pretty good. i liked the rapor he had with his back up vocals/guitar player, sam, or ham as larry called him. sam was funny. it was too loud for heather who plugged her ears. then an eighties rock band played. they looked the part totally but after a couple of songs it was too much. so karey and i got photo booth pics of us and then we all went home. speaking of home, auntie sherry, bless her, had warm brownies waiting for us on the counter. she was so good to us.
16b. roaches. just as i was getting ready for bed that night i cockroach, a BIG cockroach dashed from under my suitcase to under mine and karey's air mattress. i stifled a scream and jumped out of the way. heather who is also completely horrified by roaches jumped on top of her air mattress. when karey came out of the bathroom we lifted the mattress but we couldn't find it. then everyone seemed fine and started to go to bed. i went into the bathroom thinking "how am i going to be ok with a roach in my sleeping vicinity?" just in time to see a smaller roach disappearing under the toilet. they're everywhere, i thought. i came back to bed and tried to go to sleep, but i lay there for a couple of minutes and knew that i couldn't do it, so i took my sleeping bag to the living room and slept in the lazy boy. i woke up sunday morning and curtis was sitting by my playing games on the computer. he asked why i was out there and i told him about the cockroaches. "creepy." he said. he said he ususally only saw them in the bathroom. a few minutes later he said "now that you're awake i can cough." were you holding it in?" i asked. "yeah." awww so cute. brian got up a while later and we talked about star wars, one of brian's passions. later that morning sherry made us the hugest pancakes ever.
16c newport temple. we left early for church so we could go see the newport temple. it was of course, very beautiful and we took lots of pictures. it's a pinkish colour.
17. linger longer. by sunday i was saturated with the conference, and all the people. church was pretty good but long on a hard chair and i was falling asleep. i saw ted and the nameless girl a couple of rows in front of us. they were the only people i really recognized. i was tired of strangers. but we still had the linger longer. a huge lunch prepared by this couple from new zealand. it was really good but we got caught with this chatty girl that we just happened to meet. she came to our table with us and talked and talked and talked. she was pretty but she had this one tooth on the bottom that was way forward of the others. the way she talked reminded me of jacky roman. she didn't stop talking and she was saying how successful women can't find men and how you have to dumb yourself up for a guy. i was telling randy this today and i thought he said "well it hasn't worked for you." and i was all, is randy calling me dumb?? haha but he said that i should have said that to her. to tell you the truth, i did think it. but i wasn't in to taking. i was in to her not talking. finally someone told her i had a flat tire, so we had to go, and we left the conference for the last time. on the way home we took pictures of placentia ave and the ali baba.
18. it's true, i did have a flat tire. we hadn't driven my tire since arriving at sherry's and when we were leaving for church we notice that my back right tire was totally flat. oh great. when we got home we called around and the only place open was a sears, and it wasn't open for long. we were going to put on a spare, vicki was giving me lessons, but then uncle rick gave us a pump that you plug into the lighter in your car, to pump up the tire and we drove over there. a cute strapping young man helped us. it turned out that there was part of a razor in the tire and it only cost twenty dollars.
19. the olive garden. we ate at the olive garden and took christina with us. while we waited for our turn we took pictures outside. there were all these golf cart crossing signs and golf cart areas for the side walk that we thought were hilarious. it didn't take long though and it soon we were chowing down on salad and bread sticks. that salad is so good for some reason. and it felt good to eat green stuff for once. i ordered the portebello stuffed ravioli. yum. we felt giddy after supper and stopped at in and out burger to take pictures of the crossing palm trees outside. once we were home, we talked with sherry, watched the news, packed our bags, looked at maps and burned our pictures onto cds.
and that was the first half of my trip.
elicia leant me hers for the trip to cali which was a pretty spectacular thing for her to do because a big part of this vacation was taking clicks of anything and everything if you know what i mean, and i think you do. you probably really really do.
i'm not going to write the WHOLE trip down because that just seems too enormous of a task at this point in time, so these are some of the highlights for your reading pleasure beyone measure:
1. the travel log. the travel log is not really a highlight, but i'm making it one, and i'm the boss of my own blog so i can. the travel log is something my, if you pardon my boasting, genious (i'm so genious i can't think of how to spell genious!), self thought up two years ago when karey, dawn and i went on a road trip to california and las vegas. i brought a big note book and made note of anything of interest and lots of non-interest and the times at which they occured. like where we stopped for gas and the people we met and what we saw etc. just little particulars. and karey and i did a travel log for our road trip to alberta too, last summer and so i brought the same notebook on this trip too. at first heather was a little resistant to the whole travel log. it was early when we left vancouver and overcast and we both had little sleep and i was driving and telling her to write things down in the notebook. eg. " 6:51am Heather gives Laura the "stink eye" because she told her to write down that she saw a crushed garbage an @ the side of the road. (Heather from a distance, thought it was a lrg bird)" well you too may have given me the stink eye in that moment, but i was just trying to teach her the principles of notebooking. actually, during the first travel log, karey thought i was odd too, but she like heather after her, became converts to the travel log.
2. i forgot the bran buds. the bran buds were essential in our breakfast plans and i left them at work on top the freezer. that's where i keep them because for some reason i always eat breakfast at work. this is beside the point of course, but heather was counting on the bran buds to go in the yoghurt she provided and i failed, FAILED.
3. militant border guard. when we arrived at the border, there were only three cars ahead of us in line, yet it took us around 15 minutes to get through because the border guard was basically crazy. when it was finally our turn (another line had opened since we got there and people were whizzing through it) we came face to face with a crazy border guard. he had tatoos extending from both his forearms up into his sleeves, who knows where they ended! and he totally reminded me of zeezrom. not that i've met zeezrom, but zeezrom was recorded trying to trip up amulek in his words and that's what this dude was totally trying, but i didn't call him on it like amulek did. it started out with normal questions like where were we going, "california" i said. and that's when his crazy side started coming out. he brought up this concert going on in california and he quizzed me on it again and again, with rapid fire questions "so you're going to a concert in california" (i never said any such thing) me--no we don't know anything about a concert. "you've heard about the concert but you don't have enough money" me--no, we didn't know about the concert. "how come you're not going to the concert?" me--we're doing other things. doubtful "like what?" me--like going to the beach! "so you know about the concert but you're not going." me--no we didn't know about the concert. a couple more concert questions. "how long are you staying in california?" me--a week. "how come you aren't going longer?" me--that's all the time we get off. "where do you work, how much vacation do you get, how much money do you have, do you have a credit card, where are you staying, where did you go to school and for what, when did you get this car? how long have you had this car?" it just went on and on and then he tapped the side of my car and checked the trunk and gave me back the keys and said "have a good time." what a looney bin! i was pretty calm throughout and actually thought it was kind of funny how he kept fixating on the concert. i thought he probably wanted to go to the concert himself. heather theorized that he was bitter at the world because he was getting a divorce and mine was that he either was in the army or wanted to be in the army.
4. i am caught speeding in the everett coriador. a motorcycle cop pulled me over in the HOV lane for doing 73 in a 60 zone. this was my first ticket since i was 17. i wanted to be mad at the cop but he was really nice and reduced my ticket because i slowed down to 65 right away and didn't double it even though it was in a road work zone. so i owe 71 dollars or something. i wish it had happened in oregon or california where i'm not likely to be driving once a month. but oh well.
5. heather drives an amazing 7 hour stretch. this is amazing because heather told me that after driving two hours she gets highway hypnosis and i was prepared to do a large chunk of all the driving. we crossed into california at 5:40pm and heather did a triple honk and we cheered. after driving down mount shasta, or another mountain near mount shasta (we were never quite clear on this) we stopped to take pictures.
6. we narrowly escape sleeping with the rattlers. at eight thirty it was starting to get dark, so we began looking for a camp site. this was harder than you might think, if you are like me and believe that there are camp sites littering the california hwys. the first sign we saw was the Alamo RV site in a small place called cottonwood. as we drove to the alamo, we noticed the neighbourhood was very sketchy and the RV site smelled like pot to me. luckily there was no tent camping there. so we drove on. we saw another sign and pulled off the highway a little further on. this place was closed at 5. i saw on the map that there were tent sites, so i said to heather "let's just set up and pay in the morning when they're open." heather was balking, not being into doing things that might not be allowed. just then a man stepped around the corner of an RV and asked us if we needed something. we told him we were looking for a tent site and she said "well,... i wouldn't tent here this time of the year. the only sites are down by the river and there's snakes." heather lets out a guffaw beside me and chokes out "snakes?" "yeah, rattlers." says the man. well that was all we needed to hear. it was dark now and we were starting to doubt that we'd find a place. the guy thought there might be a place further down the hwy, so we got on the i5 again and it was then that i realized that the sings for tenting sits were brown, with a tent picture on it. because i saw one. and we veered off the highway and found a lovely site at red bluff called sycamore grove. it was quiet and pretty with long grasses, soft ground and big trees. you could hear loud choruses of crickets and you could see the stars.
we picked a spot and went back to pay the money (only 12 dollars!) and a type of golf cart all zippered up in plastic came upon us with almost no noise. it was the cute elderly couple who ran the site. he got out but she stayed behind the plastic in her slippers and nightie writing on her clipboard. we gave him our reciept and he gave us the code for the bathrooms. then we put up the tent in the dark. putting up a tent in the dark is something a clarke is apt to do, so it wasn't a big deal. we used the light from the car.
after we were all done we got ready for bed in the bathroom and then sat outside our tent and i read from alma 17 by the light of my bike light that i brought instead of a flashlight, which i don't own. i slept on four thin 'foamies' (they hardly qualify) but it was just like sleeping on one. in the morning my hips and shoulders on both sides were sore, but i was alright. heather has an airmattress so she was comfy which is good because she is the princess and the pea afterall.
the birds woke us up early with their noisy warbling. it sounded like a billion of them were sitting right over our head singing their hearts out. but i ignored them and tried to sleep longer. sometime around 7 i got up and did my thing, then we explored a little bit. sycamore grove was right on the edge of a river. we walked over to it just in time to see four of our countrymen (ie. canadian geese) fighting in the river. well they weren't really fighting but two of the geese were chasing off the other two, honking loudly while they swooped towards them. the other two yelled back but kept their distance.
7. euphoria and tuna sandwiches for breakfast. the next day was beautiful and sunny and everything was beautiful and wonderful and even the tuna sandwiches we had for breakfast were the best thing we ever had. we had such a feeling of euphoria that you would not believe. i mean i was so happy i felt like i could cry at any minute. i pointed out our euphoria to heather and we laughed about it. we decided that we both had needed a vacation very badly.
8. birds. we saw a lot of birds. from oregon all the way to southern california there was almost a constant sighting of what we assume were hawks in the sky. sometimes there were as many as 8 all flying together. we had no idea that we would be driving through hawk country. the sky was thick with them! we also caught glimpses of these beautiful white long necked birds that i am guessing was a crane of some sort. (i just looked it up and it looks like we may have seen whooping cranes!)
9. burned my driving arm. and burned it good. so now i have a slightly tanned left arm and a much darker right arm. what can you do? i have no air conditioning and drove through all of california with my window rolled down.
9a. road kill count. one new feature of the travel log is the road kill talley. road kill total for the trip down: 16
10. arrived at auntie sherry's minutes before karey and vicki. it was so nice to arrive. it took us two hours to drive across los angeles. karey and vicki didn't think we'd be arriving until later and were on their way to the mall when i called. but they turned around and we had a reunion in front of auntie sherry's house where no one was home. we decided to abandon my car and pile into vicki's air condtioned one and find somewhere to eat. so we went to in and out burger which karey really loves. i love all the choice at in and out. hamburger, cheeseburger or a double cheeseburger, or something like that. then we went to karey's other favourite place, target. she bought some clothes and we looked around because all of our clothes money was spent. (there were no nice hoodies for elicia, which i was on the look out for). then we went back to auntie sherry's and watched survivor with christina who is now 15 and a babe. heather made the mistake of asking uncle rick about his snakes and birds and as that is his passion he began to tell us all about it just when the show was coming on. but i didn't mind missing some of it because his animals are so cool. we slept on double air mattresses in the playroom (right next door to the animal room) karey and heather were asleep when i came to bed and were snoring in harmony. sometime in the night i awoke momentarily and heard vicki's darth vader like breathing. everyone had stories about hearing everyone else's snoring. pretty funny.
11. my birthday. my birthday was such a perfect day. in the morning when i was looking spiffy, i opened my presents from karey. one of my presents was in an incredible hulk gift bag. my favourite!! karey got me such good gifts and they just kept coming. she got me some sheets which, i don't think you know, i needed in a desperate way. my red jersey sheets were sporting some pretty ugly holes. and i got a make-up case, and this really nice covergirl mascara that i really like, and lip glosses galore, and sun screen testers, and VEET, which i was very excited about, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand a cute beach bag that i took to the beach that very day.
we had raisin toast for breakfast. vicki made mine for me. no one let me do anything that day. after karey helped auntie sherry with her ipod and we all were sun screened and ready to go. (it's debatable how sunscreened karey was with her partial 4 covering, but that's just the way she is and after 9 years of knowing her, i should be used to it).
we stopped at albertson's on the way to buy food for lunch. i got a turkey bacon cheddar wrap and some potato salad along with a huge bottle of water, an orange and a banana. other people bought similar things.
the beach:
we went to san clemente beach. it was a beautiful sunny hot day, with the temperatures in the mid twenties. the beach wasn't too busy and we set up our stuff (auntie sherry had the handiest beach cart that fit the umbrella, the beach chairs and everything in it.) and took off for the water with our boogie boards. the waves were big. you can't slowly inch in at this beach. people like katie and sarah would particularily have rude awakenings. we handled the shock of it all by screaming. it was sooo fun. sigh. we screamed and laughed and jumped the waves and were thrown about and rode the waves and were thrown down by the waves. the waves were so violent and karey's bathing suit barely stayed on her. i rode this one wave all the way to shore and it threw me down on this soft dip with loose pebbles and scraped up my legs. heather scraped her elbow in the same spot. the soft dip is a bad place to be caught by the pounding waves because you can't get a good stance, it's all loose stuff. that's where i lost my toe ring two years before, but this time i took it off and put it in my tin of cinnimon alltoid gum. everyone thought that that was a gross thing to do for some reason, but it seemed perfectly fine to me, i don't know why. i can see why it would gross people out, but my toes just seemed clean to me. at least i didn't have to share my gum after that. :)
anyways, after exhausting ourselves in the waves, we came in and sat on the beach chairs. mine had a squishy pillow for my head that i liked. we ate our lunch and sun bathed (i just tried to cover up my burnt driving arm). then karey and i went for a walk down the beach and took pictures. karey was pretty much the hottest babe on the beach and the pictures reveal this very thing.
when we got back vicki and heather had gone exploring in the opposite direction. we sat with auntie sherry (blissing out to her ipod tunes) and ate salt and vinegar chips. when vicki and heather came back vicki shared with us her sand exfoiliation technique. after enough sun bathing we decided to hit the waves again. we really wanted to get past the breakers. it was me and karey and heather. we were a little reluctant at first because we were finally dry, but we felt like we couldn't lose this opportunity, so we went, and we were glad we did. getting past the breakers is a hard thing to do, because all these big waves keep rolling in and pushing you back. that's when i remembered blue crush and how she dove under the waves so that's what i did. it worked too. at first karey and i were ahead of heather and we kept yelling "heeeeeaaaaaaaaaaather!!" and laughing, but then just as heather caught up, i had my back turned to the open ocean and was floating with my boogie board talking to karey who was facing me. all of a sudden she got this "woah" look on her face and i turn around just as the hugest wave is coming down on me. i got under it, but karey got carried far far away by it. like we couldn't see her except on the swell of some big wave we'd see her head bob up. it was so funny for some reason. it took her a long time to get back to us, but she finally did it and then we played around out there for a while during which time i felt very euphoric again and felt like i couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday. i just felt so happy. i was all "thanks for sharing my birthday with me guys." then the life guard on a seadoo came by to tell us that a rip tide was pulling us and to "kick that way a bit". so we did, but it was tiring and eventually we let the waves carry us in to shore where we quickly scrambled out before a crasher could trap us on the pebbles. one wave hit us so hard that it plastered the skirt of my bathing suit to my shoulder, and pulled down heather's shorts while lifting up her top at the same time. she was laughing soo hard. i love heather's cackle sometimes.
we stopped at trader joe's on the way home. as karey pointed out, there are so many places named after joe in california. he's a popular guy. trader joe's is a grocery store that is like a smaller whole foods. same types of things, but no big yummy eating place. auntie sherry wanted to get my birthday cheesecake there. we were all, how could this cheesecake be so good, but we have to be forgiven because we're ignorant cannucks.
the dinner:
back at the zimmerman zoo, we all showered and everyone else helped with dinner. i wasn't allowed, and i actually wouldn't have minded chopping some peppers for the salad or setting the table or something. it's what i do every day after all. we had a bbq of tri tip steaks. it is soooooooooooo good. i mean tri tip steaks is about the best steak ever. i have to ask dad what that cut is in canada. anyways while we were waiting for the steaks to bbq, we sat around in the sun and green of sherry's back yard. they have this outside fire oven thing, surrounded by green and a little fountain and the sun was shining in and it felt very idealic after such a perfect day at the beach. we lounged and vicki and curtis played a challenging game of connect four. then it was time for the zimmerman zoo show. first of all the mackaws and parrot and other birds were out and then uncle rick's newts which he let go in their yard made an appearance on the grape vine arbour thing and then we found a 'blue belly' lizzard of some sort on the wall and uncle rick caught it for us and we took pictures with it. curtis brought out his stick bug and brian brought out his toad. and i clicked away. it was cool.
when supper was ready we ate outside at the picnic table. besides the steak, we had baked potatoes chopped up ( i dipped mine in ranch dressing as did others, i noticed) corn, and a delicious salad and pink lemonade. we basically stuffed ourselves beyond belief. i told everyone about my corn nibblet teeth and put a piece of corn on my tooth to show how there is no difference. grossed everyone out again. then came the trader joe's cheesecake with fresh strawberry topping and 33 candles. the cheesecake was delicious. it had cinnimon sprinkled on top and it was dense and thick.
the conference:
after supper we got ready to go to the conference. after babing ourselves up vicki drove. she thankfully drove the whole time. after the huntington beach exit we saw the ali baba hotel. it had a gold pointed dome and looked like a midle eastern palace. we could have stayed there i pointed out. we agreed that next time we would. it turned out that every time we drove past the ali baba, we pointed it out and sometimes sang "prince ali, fabulous he, ali ababwa..." then we saw a restaurant called NORMS. open all night and had a sign advertizing 'broiled steaks'. norms also became a landmark for us as well as the tahitian inn motel, the ginormous 99cent store and my personal favourite, 'placentia ave'. when i first pointed it out to the rest i wondered if they had an 'umbilical ave' or amniotica pl' or anything of the like. i'm sure placentia must mean something, but to me it means the pancake like thing a baby is connected to for nutrients and what is birthed after the baby is out, the thing that is aptly also named 'the afterbirth'.
anyways we drove past the chapel on atanta where the function was being held and saw a line up out the door and around the corner of people registering. oh great we groaned. some people had to pee, like heather, and had ibs flare ups, like karey, so we decided to take care of that first. so we were turning around on this road to a apartment complex or something and karey opens her door and says "hi, sarah." and who should be walking across that very road but sarah burnham herself! it was so weird how we ran into her first thing. she hopped in with us so she could do her make-up while the you know whos did their you know whats.
when we made it back and parked on the road a little ways down fron the church, we joined the line. it looked like we might be there a long time because the line was barely moving. but then it started to move very quickly and people were coming down the line giving out bags, asking if we had tags yet and yadda yadda. when it was my turn to be asked it turnedo out that i wasn't on the list. the girl asked me to follow her. i felt nervous being seperated from my friends especially into the mix of over 1000 people. she led me through the dance where i noticed lots of people, smoke and lights, and video displays, down a hall to another hall and to a room. "go in there and she'll help you." she said and left. there was a lot of other people there too and i felt bewildered. i crept into the room and waited. a cheerful capable brunette was dealing with the problems in that room. she dealt with me first. she looked up my email and got me a reciept to show that i paid and then asked some girl in a white pant suit (who was not a volunteer) to take me back to the line. this girl was almost as bewildered as me. she ended up taking me to this very annoying girl who said to me "walk with me and tell me what you need because that's what you need to do." i passed my friends who were just getting in and told them not to lose me. the girl was pushing me in front of her as she walked. i did not like this. she wasn't paying much attention to me, just pushing me along until the very end where i got a tag from a guy and then got my bag and program and a yellow wrist band that we were to wear the whole time, and finally got back to my friends.
heather needed to put her stuff in the coat check so we walked through the building (HUGE) looking at all the different rooms, squeezing past the crowds of peeps. heather put her stuff in the coat check but gave me her wad of money and credit card to put in my pocket. then we walked in to the dance. it was really croweded and some of us did not feel warmed up to being there. as we walked in this guy in the crowd was staring right at me. i thought it was weird but ignored him, ie. did not make eye contact. we stood in there for a while and decided we would get warmed up by playing some games in the game room. so we were walking out and we had to pass the staring guy and he reached out and touched my arm so i had to look at him and he said "are you too shy to say hi to me?". that's kind of like a dare, don't you think? "i'm not too shy." i said and smiled. "hi." "hello," he said and shook my hand. "i'm ronald." "laura." i answerd. he squinted "nora or laura?" he asked. it was really loud in there, i mean it was a dance after all. "with an L" i told him. he began to say something else in my ear, but i interrupted, seeing vicki and karey standing against the wall by the door waiting for me. "my friends are waiting for me, we're going to play games." "are you going to invite me?" asked ronald. "sure, if you want to." i shrugged. "this is ronald." i told the girls as i passed them into the hall with ronald on my heels. so ronald came with us but he didn't really want to play games. he wanted to salsa, and as soon as we were in the room he was trying to get me to go dance. luckily sarah was there and she wanted to dance too. so she went and salsaed with ronald.
we played 80s trivial pursuit. you wouldn't believe how hard it was. i didn't know anything. while we were setting up this girl and guy came by and showed some interest. we asked them if they wanted to play. at first the guy who turned out to be ted, said no, but when the girl was into it, she got him to sit down too. i said to the girl "hi my name is laura." "hiiii! how are you!" she said all enthusiastically. then she looked down at her chest. "do i have a name tag on or something?" "umm no.." we answered. "how did you know my name?" she asked. hahahaha. we laughed. "no! MY name is laura!" we answered. her name was laura too, obviously. but she said it the american way, the way leif used to say it. laura that rhymes with far-a (my laura rhymes with bora). she was kind of spacy at times but very nice and chatty. it turned out that she knew karrie farthing. (i forget how to spell her kary.)
after a while an enthusiatic guy named ryan came in and was like "woah games! i didn't know there were games! if i knew there were games i'd have been in here all night!" "do you wanna play?" i asked him. "you can be on our team." and that was all he needed. he pulled up a seat in between me and vicki. he said his name was ryan-the-ringer. he was so funny. he remembered the weirdest things like what channel a show in the eighties was on or other such things. he was also easily distracted into other topics, often brought up by laura-far-a who wasn't much into the game as much as she was talking.
the game became tedious because no one knew anything so whenever someone got something right, we gave them a pie, and heather especially gave clues. another girl came and joined us, but i never learned her name. she was on laura-far-a and ted's team. she was fun though. after a while ted heard his mom calling him but laura made him stay until someone won, which incedentially was them. he left and a guy named eric joined us. we just sat around and talked and asked each other questions from the game that we thought we would know. eric was very confident at first. "ask me ten sports and leisure questions. i guaruntee that i'll get at least 6 out of 10" he told nonamegirl. she obliged but eric only knew one. eric started telling jokes. i only remember one and that's because of karey and vicki's reactions to it. "want to know a dirty racist joke?" asked eric. "a marathoner fell into a mud puddle." vicki and karey had blank looks on their faces (i found out later that they didn't hear the beginning of the joke.) "a racist! get it! haha!" i said pretending to laugh. well when they got it, they just killed themselves laughing and that joke set them off any time it was brought up the whole weekend. i think it was very gratifying to eric. ryan the ringer told a joke that didn't make any sense. ronald came in and tried to get me to dance again. i wasn't into it. ted came back in too. oh yeah! we were waiting for barb to show up. she was driving herself from the airport, a fact that made us nervous for her, and it turned out that she got lost. she phoned karey who gave the phone to eric who gave her directions. so when barb showed up we left soon after. eric followed barb and sarah out and hugged them. little did we know that eric was after the hugs. then he came back and as we were walking down the hall he sideways hugged vicki and then me (we were the last two in the trek down the hall), he added to me that it was my birthday hug. that's the last we saw of eric the joker, or at least that i saw. i'm bad at picking people out of a crowd and this was a huge crowd. karey felt that eric jipped her and heather in the hug department. "apparently he didn't want to hug me or heather." she said. haha.
we got home around 1 and went to bed
12. the strange man in the truck. the next morning we were on our way to huntington beach beach to do our service project of picking up litter. we had parked down the road and were walking down to the beach when a truck with american flags waving from every corner pulled over. the music was pumping and an old man was inside. he just leaned towards us and bopped his head to the music. i was waiting for him to say something or ask directions or something, but he didn't. he did however, choose a teddybear from amongst a row of stuffed animals sitting on the bench beside him, picked it up and moved it back and forth to the music. i gave him the thumbs up sign and we moved on. what the? karey was reaching for her camera but she was too late. he had similarily stopped a group in front of us so we thought he might be someone from the conference. nope. just a nutbar.
13. vicki excells at garbage collection. it was cold and cloudy with a heavy 'marine layer' that didn't burn off until late afternoon. we were all equipped with our plastic gloves (the loose sandwich gloves, not the snug latex kind) and a white garbage bag, and set loose on the beach. we met the bishop of the huntington beach 1st ward (host ward) while we were waiting to get our bag. he's been to vancouver and knows how beautiful it is, so we liked him. he goes heli skiing above pemberton or something like that. he also showed off his knowledge of the word 'toque.' anyways while we were picking up garbage on what seemed like miles of beach, and there was a lot to pick up, especially styrofoam, karey and i noticed that vicki was always ahead of us. we decided that she always went ahead and only picked up the big things so her bag would fill up faster, leaving the mini, itsy bitsy stuff for us. we decided to get ahead of her. when we caught up she told her her strategy. always find stuff full of sand she instructed. ie. a bottle, ie. a plastic bag... we found some dead birds but no one would put them in their bag. i found a flip flop and so did karey. vicki found at least 4 tennis balls. i found a gi joe. tons of bottle caps. it really bugs me that people litter on such a beautiful place like that beach. go litter at the land fill instead! :) it also bugs me that a huge factory is basically right at the beach. i saw a lot of that in california. but at the same time right by the factory and beach would be a wild life reserve for erns or something.
there was supposed to be breakfast at the beach but there was none. as we were leaving a guy came by on a bicycle pulling a trailor full of granola bars. "did you guys get breakfast?" he asked. "no!!" we answered in unison. "awww, take two then, because that's basically four because there's two in each." he said strangely enthusiastically for a man who's offering people granola bars for breakfast at ten thirty in the morning. but we weren't too proud. we grabbed some and the guy that was with him said in what we found was his typical condescendingish manner (he was one of the organizers, matt) "ok. happy now? ok. appreciate it." " 'preshiate you!" i called after him. as we walked back this girl with an ultra thick curtain of brown curls ran past us. we caught up to her at the light. then she ran across. then we caught up to her at the next light. then she ran across. she kept running. maybe that's how she stays so thin we mused.
14. crabby's boathouse. we decided to eat in downtown huntington beach. it was the cutest little area ever. we found crabby's almost right away and decided to eat there. barb and sarah came with us too. we sat outside on crabby's patio, i don't know why but it was a lot of fun. i can't think of a single particular reason, but we enjoyed ourselves nevertheless. the portions turned out to be enormous. i had a spicy seafood bisque in a bread bowl. it had calamar, shrimp and muscles in it and it was soooooooooooooo good. i was sad that i couldn't finish it and i valiantly tried because there was so much good stuff left but i couldn't. hardly anyone could finish theirs. there was sand all over the floor at crabby's and a guy on a skate board rolled by while we were there. that's what kind of place this is, said karey (i think)
15. kyaking. after crabby's we were a little late for kyaking so we decided to skip meeting at the school and go straight to the kyak place. we got a little lost getting out of huntington down town and we were low on gas and vicki was getting peevish. we were all a little crabby and tired actually. at the gas station vicki was mad at the guy who made her leave her credit card with him, meanwhile we saw all these amazing cars, like lambourginis, and corvettes and this stunning but it turned out we were almost the first ones to the kyaking place. once we were out on the water we started to feel better and the sun finally came out. heather liked the guy helping us to get our pfd's even though she had to tell him that she was too 'voluptuous' for hers. "i'm kind of big...." awkward. i was the first one out on the water and the guy made me get in, in the water, which i've never done before, but it went alright. kyaking was fun but there were so many people and we were going through narrow water ways that it often got hairy. our guide kept stopping us too, so everyone could catch up, which was good, i guess, excpet then you had to navigate out of a jumble of kyakers and people ramming into you and so on. vicki had a scare when she thought it was me coming up behind her and it wasn't and she almost tipped. she didn't tip, but she splarshed herself good. she was particularily keen on staying dry too. we went by all these big and beautiful rich people houses. apparently famous people live there, but no one told us who. then we kyaked by these birds and crabs and things and fishermen. it actually wasn't that long, but it was fun. one guy tipped over. a girl and a cute guy who was a very good kyaker helped him back in. karey gave him back his paddle. i never found out why he tipped but it wasn't because i didn't ask. no one seemed to know. when we pulled in under the bridge at the end, i pulled into the mud, thinking it was sand. i asked these girls to help me get out. they were really nice and both mucked up their flip flops, losing them in the mud to help me. i left mine and helped karey carry (karey carry! haha!) hers up to the top. "do you want to go back for yours?" she asked. "nahh. that's their job." i said without a shred of guilt.
16. Larry Bigsbee. and the larry bigsbee band. saturday night larry and his band played for us. larry was in walk the line or something. i didn't get how or who, but he was in it. but before larry we had to do one of those dumb getting to know you things where you get a list and go around and find people who fit it, like "i have more than six people in my family" "i grew up outside of the us" etc. i'm never into those kinds of things, but it was kind of fun in the end. karey and i met a lot of interesting people. i met a guy who agreed to say his birthday was in april, but it was in june, but i needed someone for the someone with the same birth month as you. happy birthday i told him as we looked for our next victim. we saw ted with the running girl, he signed the "i've ridden a motorcycle." one on mine. he had a cast on, but i didn't hear why. karey was really into getting her whole thing signed so she could be a winner. but she turned out to be the seventh, so she got nothing. back to larry, vicki particularily took a shine to larry. vicki rae bigsbee. larry and his band were pretty good. i liked the rapor he had with his back up vocals/guitar player, sam, or ham as larry called him. sam was funny. it was too loud for heather who plugged her ears. then an eighties rock band played. they looked the part totally but after a couple of songs it was too much. so karey and i got photo booth pics of us and then we all went home. speaking of home, auntie sherry, bless her, had warm brownies waiting for us on the counter. she was so good to us.
16b. roaches. just as i was getting ready for bed that night i cockroach, a BIG cockroach dashed from under my suitcase to under mine and karey's air mattress. i stifled a scream and jumped out of the way. heather who is also completely horrified by roaches jumped on top of her air mattress. when karey came out of the bathroom we lifted the mattress but we couldn't find it. then everyone seemed fine and started to go to bed. i went into the bathroom thinking "how am i going to be ok with a roach in my sleeping vicinity?" just in time to see a smaller roach disappearing under the toilet. they're everywhere, i thought. i came back to bed and tried to go to sleep, but i lay there for a couple of minutes and knew that i couldn't do it, so i took my sleeping bag to the living room and slept in the lazy boy. i woke up sunday morning and curtis was sitting by my playing games on the computer. he asked why i was out there and i told him about the cockroaches. "creepy." he said. he said he ususally only saw them in the bathroom. a few minutes later he said "now that you're awake i can cough." were you holding it in?" i asked. "yeah." awww so cute. brian got up a while later and we talked about star wars, one of brian's passions. later that morning sherry made us the hugest pancakes ever.
16c newport temple. we left early for church so we could go see the newport temple. it was of course, very beautiful and we took lots of pictures. it's a pinkish colour.
17. linger longer. by sunday i was saturated with the conference, and all the people. church was pretty good but long on a hard chair and i was falling asleep. i saw ted and the nameless girl a couple of rows in front of us. they were the only people i really recognized. i was tired of strangers. but we still had the linger longer. a huge lunch prepared by this couple from new zealand. it was really good but we got caught with this chatty girl that we just happened to meet. she came to our table with us and talked and talked and talked. she was pretty but she had this one tooth on the bottom that was way forward of the others. the way she talked reminded me of jacky roman. she didn't stop talking and she was saying how successful women can't find men and how you have to dumb yourself up for a guy. i was telling randy this today and i thought he said "well it hasn't worked for you." and i was all, is randy calling me dumb?? haha but he said that i should have said that to her. to tell you the truth, i did think it. but i wasn't in to taking. i was in to her not talking. finally someone told her i had a flat tire, so we had to go, and we left the conference for the last time. on the way home we took pictures of placentia ave and the ali baba.
18. it's true, i did have a flat tire. we hadn't driven my tire since arriving at sherry's and when we were leaving for church we notice that my back right tire was totally flat. oh great. when we got home we called around and the only place open was a sears, and it wasn't open for long. we were going to put on a spare, vicki was giving me lessons, but then uncle rick gave us a pump that you plug into the lighter in your car, to pump up the tire and we drove over there. a cute strapping young man helped us. it turned out that there was part of a razor in the tire and it only cost twenty dollars.
19. the olive garden. we ate at the olive garden and took christina with us. while we waited for our turn we took pictures outside. there were all these golf cart crossing signs and golf cart areas for the side walk that we thought were hilarious. it didn't take long though and it soon we were chowing down on salad and bread sticks. that salad is so good for some reason. and it felt good to eat green stuff for once. i ordered the portebello stuffed ravioli. yum. we felt giddy after supper and stopped at in and out burger to take pictures of the crossing palm trees outside. once we were home, we talked with sherry, watched the news, packed our bags, looked at maps and burned our pictures onto cds.
and that was the first half of my trip.
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