So Cal family and why you should avoid Lindsey Liquor in Altadena, CA

We took off rather early to head out to Chula Vista and boy, were we cranky. I mean CRANKY! After several days in the car together with limited sleep, close quarters and no alone time at all we were all melting down. In a perfect world, I would have run off by myself and just basked in my own company. But in THIS world, I was heading down to see my Aunt Sandie and cousin Kathy, who I had not seen since I was 7, the age of my cousin Kathy's daughter. I was not exactly at my prime for small talk and hob-nobbing, but our schedule was in place and it was either go or not see them again for another who knows how long. So, I went.




But, in my infinite wisdom, I realized that Kristen had none of the obligations of children or family I did. So, in a 'save yourself!!!' moment I offered to drop her off at a beach while I went down. Tyler Carroll had bragged on a small community called 'Cardiff-by-the-sea', which was about 35 miles north of my Aunt's house, and a well known surf hang out, so I dropped her off and headed to Chula Vista with cranky kids in tow. I can't emphasize enough how cranky the occupants of this car were. I mean, seriously. Lock you and your kids in a small space for days with limited and mostly uncomfortable sleep and let me know how you do. Cranky.

We arrived at 10:30 and it was lovely. Kate had a fantastic time playing with Sydney who, at almost 7 is autistic and in special ed classes in school. With Kate's younger age though, you wouldn't have known and there were no barriers between them. They played imaginary pirates, played on the swing set in her back yard and ran around picking oranges, lemons and grapefruit from the trees. They were lovely. My Aunt played a great hostess and had bought lots of fruit and all the trimmings for burgers and set up a great spot in the back yard for us to picnic in. If I hadn't been so ready to fall asleep, I'm sure it would have been really awesome, but as it was, I wasn't really fit for company. We got there at 10:30, the kids played to their heart's content and then we left again at 2 ish.

We drove back north to pick up Kristen at Cardiff. She had had an amazing time watching and photographing surfer's, walking around the seaside parts of the town and lounging on the shore. Besides her insanely pink skin, she'd had a great day :) We were completely wiped though. I mean totally. This was our most off/down/weird/done day. We drove back up to Altadena, CA to stay with the Bethke's and were immediately at home.

After all of our running and fussing, the Bethke's house was a place of solace. I felt rested as soon as I got there. Rob and Jenny began showing the kids attention and playing with them as soon as we arrived and all the while managed to prepare dinner together. I love the sight of a married couple cooking :) They made us a spread of toppings for a BBQ chicken salad with chips and guac and a bottle of Argentinian Malbec wine. After dinner the kids played with their old puppy, Breka, and then Jack crashed, and Kate fought sleep hard as we attempted to have adult time.

Kristen and I were craving beer, so we went in search at a local grocery store, but couldn't find much better than Miller -the Champagne of beers-, so we went to a local liquor store not knowing what a bad idea that was. It was called "Lindsey Liquor", which sounded safe to me, but I should've had a better look inside before I ventured. I'm sure there wasn't an actual floor down, it was dirty, most of the people inside lacked teeth and there was a guy with a gigantic beer gut in a wife beater standing in the middle of the store just looking creepy. I looked, and then came back out and reported to Kristen what I'd found. And sure enough, as I backed out of my spot, creepy guy was standing in the middle of the store just leering at people and looking creepy. "See.", I said. And we both just bust up laughing.

We finally found a drug store that sold liquor and bought some Fat Tire to bring back. Jenny had made homemade mint brownies and we dug out the last bit of our stash of Djaruum Black Cloves (which are incredibly hard to find any more because of the new law outlawing 'flavored' cigarettes) and we sat around, each with a clove, a beer, and a brownie. Their patio was so peaceful and I fired up my roaster and made them some Ethiopia Yirgecheff as a 'thank you' for their hospitality.

We slept so hard that night. And the next day was the best day ever.

Cali

Palm Springs

We met up with Kristen's uncle Mike at the In 'N Out in Thousand Palms, CA. It was Kristen's first time so she got excited and then ate it and realized, as so many have done before her, ohh, it really is just a burger joint. The kids were pretty fried by this point and after getting back to Mike's condo at the base of this beautiful dirt mountain the kids played with some of the toys around his house and quickly crashed. The phone rang once in the room where Kate was sleeping and she woke up so terrified she was shaking. She recounted the experience to me saying 'and then the phone BRIIIIING! BRIIIIIING!' all while shaking her hands in the air to demonstrate how incredibly loud and starteling the whole experience was. She was so comical I was really trying hard not to laugh as she tried to gain my sympathy as to how traumatic the whole event was for her.

After she fell asleep, Kristen and I snuck down to the hot tub and melted away the driving pains. It was pretty glorious. I updated the blog and then crashed hard.

The next morning Kate woke up before everyone and I realized that if I didn't roll out of bed with her I'd have two kids awake, so we quietly dressed and snuck out to a local coffee shop called Koffi. We drove into downtown Palm Springs, which was adorable, it had a mix of new boutique style shops and authentically retro shops from the 50's. In the shop, I asked them if they roasted their own and the guy replied "It's such a secret, I don't even know where we roast it." Weird. What coffee shop isn't proud of their roaster? I got suspicious. I ordered an Ethiopia specialty estate, and got a specialty Panama estate for Kristen. The Panama estate was the hands down winner, I've never had an Ethiopia that lacked berry notes like that one did, but it was passable.

Back at Mike's we had breakfast and hung out while we waited for Jack to wake up. The poor guy is so messed up with all the traveling, that he slept in til 8:45, which was 10:45 on Arkansas time. After we finally got going we went to Sheild's Date Garden and I picked up a bunch of dates so that I can make 'cheap dates' - an amazing stuffed date recipe we snagged from "Table Mesa' in Bentonville. It's pitted dates stuffed with cream cheese, blue cheese, a little bit of cayanne and then wrapped in bacon before baking so that the insides are melty and the outside is crispy. They are AMAZING!

We were running a little late at that point, so we just jumped back on the road and headed off to San Clemente where Kristen had a job interview by interviewing families for a promotional video for a surf ministry. While she worked that the kids and I went down to Salt Creek beach. As soon as we hit the bottom of the stairs leading down, Jack squirmed out of my arms and plopped himself down and began grabbing fistfuls of sand. He was incredibly content. Kate, however, wanted to go to the water, so I picked him up - much to his anger and frustration - and we walked to where the water lapped at their toes with each small wave. Kate LOVED it, Jack, however, plopped down every time the tide would pull a wave back out and kept running back to where he could just sit and dig. So, with there just being one of me, I followed him and made Kate come with me. We dug holes in the wet sand until there was a little pool of water. Jack fit just perfectly, so he plopped his little bottom down in the middle of it and splashed happily. I helped Kate build a second pool, and then they took turns climbing from one pool to the other and digging. We did that for about an hour. Then we trekked back up the steep hill to the parking lot and I made a comical attempt to remove sand from their sun-screened bodies before just sitting their sandy bodies down with snacks while we waited for Kristen.

After she returned we drove up to Costa Mesa for dinner with those of mine and John's Siloam Springs small group who had moved to SoCal. We met at the Swogger's house and the Bethkes and Carrolls met us their with their friend Josh. Kath made a great spread of lasagna and accessories and we sat around talking and laughing all night. Jack went down while we were there, but Kate was just deliriously running around giggling. Afterwards, we drove down to Irvine to stay with the Hills for the night. The kids sleep schedule was officially OFF and they didn't get to sleep until 11 pm - or 1 am Arkansas time. I was pulling out my hair over that one!!

We got up at 6:45 and Brian got us donuts from a local shop and we got to hang out with he, Janet and Natalie before heading off. Kate announced that Natalie, who is 7, was her 'best-friend'. Natalie, confused, looked at her and replied 'um, I just met you!', and then the next morning she walked up to the room Natalie was sleeping in and told Kristen "shhh, my best friend is sleeping in there." Lol, apparently, she was a big hit :)

From there we drove to Kean coffee, where I had the most amazing mocha of my life. Pictures are sure to follow. It was a Mayan mocha, which I've had before, but the smoothness of the espresso and the slight savoryness of the mocha were just amazing. Hopefully we'll be able to hit up another local of theirs before we head out! I'll write more about driving down to Chula Vista and back up to Pasadena tomorrow, I'm spent!!

Yuma to Palm Springs

We got to Yuma after 1,615 miles of driving. It wasn't bad really, well, not after the sun finally came up. You saw from the pictures I posted earlier the most interesting parts of the landscape - what I should include though is the REST of the landscape. Which is flat and about as sparse as a teenage beard. I haven't seen a tree in days I feel like. I mean, I've seen palm trees, but those don't count in my book. Those are more like exotic apparitions, mirages in the desert landscape.

In Yuma we visited Venessa, my college roommate, her husband and her two kids, Aloria and Justus. Each of her kids are 2-3 months older than mine, but I missed the boat with her current pregnancy ;) She's 6 months along with a baby girl, and you'd think she was walking around with nothing more than a beach ball under her shirt for all the rest of her body showed her baby bearing. We had a great time, she made a wonderful homemade soup, waffles for breakfast and a veggie yakisoba noodle stirfry for lunch. We stayed up to the late late hour of 10 pm talking and then passed out from travel exahustion. Bed never felt so good!

The next morning we let the kids run around together. They dynamic was comical. Kate and Aloria got along wonderfully. They played with dolls and puppies and castles. The boys, however, were like rivals. One would grab a toy from the other and the other would run into the first one in retaliation. Not to get the toy back, but just to prove his manliness. Then one would run into the other one and the other would fall down and cry while giving the one who pushed him over a death glare. The expressions on those boys were hilarious. They were like little frenzied balls that we couldn't keep apart, but couldn't force to get along. Like friends, but... not. The 18 -24 month age range is such a strange phase.

We spent some time playing in their apartment's play area outside and snapped a million adorable pictures, which I'll post tomorrow after Kristen downloads the onto her computer. There was sand again, but thankfully Jack bypassed the diaper/sand extravenganza of yesterday.



Then, we were back on the road again. It went quickly and the landscape, while constantly desert, changed dramatically every 10-30 miles, so things kept interesting. We came into California on I-8 and after passing a flirtatous older boarder patrol man we found ourselves in the middle of the rolling sand dunes. Kristen said it looked exactly like the desert outside of Cairo, but they only lasted a few minutes before we were back to scrubby, dry landscape that was dotted with half dead bushes. We turned north on highway 111 and jumped off the road at Niland to see "Salvation Mountain", which, I'm told is in the movie "Into the Wild" - but I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know. I stayed at the car with the kids while Kate napped and Jack played with his toes, and Kristen went inside and took pictures of a Dr. Suessesque cave of art hidden underneath a painted adobe exterior. I wasn't there, so I can't do it justice in description, but I'm excited to share the pictures with you!





Fron Niland we drove along the Salton Sea, which is a 35 mile long salt water body, is incredibly fascinating. It was formed in 1905 when intense flooding broke down a dam holding back the Colorado river broke and began dumping the entire river into this gigantic sink hole in the California desert. It completely submerged the town of Salton and quite a bit of an indian reservation before they were able to stop the flow 2 years later. The result is a beautiful, shimmering pool of deadish water that has some trouble not smelling and keeping a pH that doesn't kill off the fish that live in it. Back in the 50's it was aparently "the" place for Hollywood stars to go and waterski and vacation, so several mansions and resorts were built around its' shore, but I didn't see any of that, and they're aparently all deserted. All we saw were a bunch of trailer parks and a few run down shells of who knows what. After we passed north of it, we drove past some date orchards - aka, a bunch of palm trees :) And then we passed into Indio, CA to hop on I-10 and ate In 'n Out in Thousand Palms with Kristen's uncle Mike and then we went back to his condo for the night. I'll update more about that later though, because I'm just about dying of exahustion! I just wanted to write this all out while I could :) G'nite!

In The Beginning

March 9th was difficult. Not only was I packing for a month away from home and hubby for two kids and I, but I had attempted to switch over to using a jailbroke iphone that didn't like me so much. I finished packing at 10 a.m., I was kid-free thanks to my MIL, but I couldn't leave the house because I didn't have a working phone. I worked on it until 12:30 before finally giving up and driving to Tulsa with the kiddos to pick up Kristen and finally get on our way. I spent another 90 minutes or so trying to get things figured out while Kristen packed up the van and made enough sense of my part of the packing to get all of her things in. In the end though, after updating and restoring my unlocked phone, it refused to be a phone to me, so I activated my old one again. So, no email and facebook on the road for me - drat.

We pulled out of Tulsa at 3:30 and made pretty good time until we realized we were hitting Oklahoma City at rush hour. We came to a full stop in the middle of the highway and I again kicked myself for spending so much time on the iphone - bane of my exsistence. But then, pask OKC we were free, it was just open Oklahoma roads! We came down I-44 through Lawton, OK and crossed over into Texas around dark. Ohhhh Texas - you are so so very large. We cut through a mess of small highways until Abilene and then headed west on I-20 through such Texas greats like Odessa and Midland before dumping out onto I-10 around 2 a.m. and praying that El Paso would seem closer than all the mile markers made it seem. 321 miles to El Paso - ugh. 2 in the morning - uuuughhhh!

It's all kind of a blur after a while, all I know is that Kristen is a champ. I know I got more sleep than she did, and even that isn't saying much. At one point in time we pulled of the road and slept until the sun started lighting the sky. It was maybe 45 minutes or an hour? After that I hopped back in the driver's seat and drove on, finally taking on more of the driving. God bless you Kristen. I could never have done this without you!!



At about 10 a.m. we pulled into Tuscon, AZ. It was BEAUTIFUL! I'm not much of a desert person, and maybe it was because of all the scruby land I'd already driven through that made it seem all the more amazing. But, when we came into sight of the mountains around Tuscon I was just blown away!



We met up with my friend Julia, who I hadn't seen in 5 years. We both lived in Jackson, MI and worked waiting tables at Red Lobster. We met her at her apartment, which was adorable, it had a little hidden courtyard in the middle of all the apartments and had a painted brick interior. So cute. She treated us to breakfast at a place called "The Blue Willow" where I had a gigantic mess of eggs, salsa and chilis with potatoes, sausage and toast. Afterwards we walked to Avenue Coffee, proud purveyors of Intelligesta Coffee, a place I look forward to visiting while in the L.A. area :)

So, we had high intentions of using my fantasmical coffee setup while on the road, but unfortuately, while my grinder has a low enough voltage to operate on the 12v converter in the car, my electric Moka pot, which I'd gotten JUST for this purpose, couldn't get enough power fromt he outlet and would just turn off as soon as I'd turn it on. NOOOOOO!!!! Okay $4 coffees, I welcome you with out-stretched arms... in the tenative a lover scorned kind of way...






After coffee we went to a beautiful old park about a block in size. It had palm trees and other desert trees that I don't know the names of. The kids played in the sandy area beneath the play structure. Jack, unfortunately, grabbed handfuls of sand and shoved them into the back of his diaper which meant a thourough roadside deep clean of his bottom before heading out again. I had a great time catching up with Julia and re-getting to know her after we'd lost touch in the last year or two.

Then, we were on the road again, this time to Yuma. Which is where we are now, but more on that later :)