Road Trip...

Last night we shopped for road trip supplies. Our shopping list included red vines, gummy bears, beef jerky, trail mix...I felt like I was twelve when we got to the checkout. I half expected Mom to come around the corner and say, "Put those back! No. Get the smaller bag!" We got some responsible stuff, but mostly we'll be having whatever the hell we want on our way across the eastern half of the states.

I'm way excited! There's something about driving from where we are to somewhere hours away and coming home by a different route that makes the country feel small, accessible, and mine. And I wouldn't want to spend hour after hour in the car with anyone but Robb. He's never lost, always adventurous, and hey, as long as he's around, any place feels like home.

The only thing I'm really going to miss is the cat. But a week isn't too long. And he'll have a cat-sitter while we're gone. It's not like the apartment is going to be empty.

So tomorrow morning we're setting out for Virginia Beach. We plan to stop on the way and get a hotel room for the night. We'll get there Friday, see Harry Potter with some friends, hopefully have nice weather so we can go to the beach, and let our friends show us around their city. Then, on Sunday or Monday, depending on their work schedules, we're off to home. There's talk of stopping in Washington D.C., since I've never even SEEN our nation's capital. And all this without a working camera...

We'll probably just share Robb's camera. I'm taking my computer, so depending on internet connections, you might get a few posts while we're there. I'll be keeping a handwritten journal of our escapade, if nothing else. I'm sure you'll hear all about it. However it goes, I'm way excited! I've never been any further east than Eastern Ohio.

Alright. Now? Time to go to work for the eighth day in a row...

Out

Pampered...

Last night, at the suggestion of my coworkers, I decided to pamper myself to try and get rid of my three day headache.  I came home, ate chips, homemade guac, and pizza rolls for dinner (I know...terrible...but we're trying to clean out the fridge before vacation).  I poured myself a glass of wine, drew a hot bath, lit a candle, put some music on, and got in the tub.  It was lovely.  My coworkers had said they thought maybe it was a tension headache, and that a hot bath and a massage might help it go away.

Well, Robb was having dinner with family from out of town, so it was the perfect time to treat myself to a little something.  When he came home, I was still in the bath.  Some relaxing Guns n Roses was playing on the stereo (it was on shuffle...maybe not the best choice).  He came in and gave me a neck massage and a pice of apple coffee cake that his dad had sent him home with (speaking of...I think it's breakfast time).

*munch munch*

And...I got out of the bath after the cat started getting a little too curious about what was on the other side of the tub wall.  I didn't think a screaming ball of fur and claws would be that relaxing.  Did the headache go away?  No.  I mean...it's not there this morning, but it was last night.

Perhaps it packed its bags and left.  If not, well...I'm not taking it with on vacation.  Thursday morning can't come fast enough!

Out

Holiday in the City...

Monday, Robb and I both had the day off (hooray for bank and government work), so instead of sitting around the house bickering, we decided to go out and bicker.  Actually, we had a lovely time in Chicago.

We took the train in, which is one of my favorite things to do.



The train windows make for awesome color washes.  It was a long-ish ride, but we got there.



We normally just hop on the el once we get into the city and head on up to Boystown for some thrift shopping and sightseeing.  This time, though, we decided Michigan Avenue sounded nice.  I convinced him to take me to Millenium Park first, though, since I'd never been there in the winter.

We visited the bean; yes, it's overdone, but it's a must.



He started it.



And, of course, I followed suit.  I could take pictures with this bean for hours, but my camera likes to tell me its battery is dead in cold weather, so I stopped.

We watched people biff on the ice skating rink:



It looks like it was nasty out in this photo.  Winter will do that.  It was actually just a little foggy but mostly blue skies and sunshine over the lake.  There were two hot Navy boys in uniform skating around the rink, too.  We had to stop and watch them for a while.

The boy bought me hot chocolate (which was amazingly good for concession stand quality), and we headed down Michigan Avenue, stopping at the river to take some photos.



The ice looked so cool all broken up in the river.  There was a surprising amount of trash and goose poop spread over the top, though.

While we walked, I passed something that made me laugh, and I had to go back and take a picture.



It's the Victoria Secret store.  And look juuuuuust inside the door.  That would be the hetero waiting room.  There were about 6 guys in Carharts and boots just standing in the foyer between the two sets of doors, trying not to look awkward.  Well, epic fail.

We shopped around for a while, hit the Banana Republic store, where, as I said, I got a $60 sweater for $13.  It was pretty awesome.  Oh, and I got these 30% off, too:



I wore them to work yesterday with my green argyle sweater that the boy bought me for Christmas.  It was out of control. 

We cruised Water Tower place, got some free chocolate from Godiva, and saw these:



Do they have these in the public bathrooms where you all live?  It's a Dyson Airblade.  You stick your hand in the top and it just blows like hell, and when you hands come out, they're dry.  It takes about five seconds and is AMAZING.  I washed my hands twice just so I could use it again.  I know, I know...I'm a dork.

It was a nice night on the town.



We ended in Boystown at our favorite restaurant:  Nookies.  It's a family style place with great food, great service, and cute waiters.  I love it there! 

It was a lovely day in the city, and we were home before 10:30, too!  All told, a great time!

Out

Day 13 - Homeward Bound...

I woke up with a sore throat and shook my fist at L.A.

Our plane left at four, so we wanted to be at the airport by two.  That meant half a day to kill before we left.  We decided to see the things we wouldn't be able to see at home:  Mission Beach and In-n-Out.



It was a gorgeous day at the beach, busy for what I would have expected on a Tuesday, and warm.  Our luggage was in the car, and our feet were in the sand.

We wandered down past the area where we'd turned around a few nights prior.  There's a point where the beach goes from nice and peaceful to a little bit ghetto at night.  Bit in the day, there were people all over.



If you look closely at this photo, you can see a little toddler peeking out of that hole that hot dad is digging.

We people watched, tried to stay dry, and took photos.



Since it was still kind of early, there were shells people hadn't scooped up yet.



We wandered for a few hours just enjoying the last time we'd be able to wade in the Pacific for a long time.  And when we were sufficiently hungry, it was off for food.



Yum.  I miss it so much.

After that, we waited around in the rental car office for a ride to the airport, sharing the tiny space with this guy who had horrible B.O.  It was great.  Finally, we were off, though. 

I started feeling like crap about this time...weak and dizzy with a headache.

Security was a breeze, so we ended up having almost two hours to kill.  And what is there to do at an airport?  How about...people watch!



So we did.  Those two guys down the way were making eyes at us at one point.  They were cute.  And a cop kept coming to talk to that woman seated next to them.  Apparently there was some problem he was trying to resolve.  I couldn't really hear, and it was hard to pay attention to words when all I could focus on was how tall, dark, and handsome the cop was.  Wow. 

Before long, we boarded, and we were on our way home.



I said a little prayer as we left the ground, and settled into my seat.  By now I was feeling like absolute garbage.  I was so sick, my skin hurt.  No lie.  But I soldiered on taking photos as we left my new favorite place on the globe.



We swept out over the ocean and headed back toward land.

I took one last look at the bay:



Our original little bayside hotel is right there by the docks...

When we flew over Coronado, the scrubby little hills on one side of the beach finally made sense to me.



Enlarge this one...you'll see CORONADO on the beach.

I loved this shot of the bay bridge:



So pretty!  And then it was cornfields and clouds as I tried not to die on the way home.



We passed this in the desert:



It looks like several tracks designed to test cars...but there were no major roads leading to it at all, just a tiny little building.  I wonder what it was...

I was fading out, and Robb was scoring us extras by flirting with our gay flight attendant...but I managed to get a photo of one last sunset:



Goodbye, San Diego.

Hello, Chicago.



I stumbled along to our bags, ready to just curl up and die.  We rode back to Robb's dad's house to get our car, which wouldn't start.

After that was all cleared up, I slept on the ride home, wishing I could float.  I'm sure I had a fever, and I cursed L.A. the whole way home.

We got to bed finally around 2 AM, and I had to work at 7 the next morning.  Isn't my boss lovely?

Yeah...but I made it.  And I am finally getting over my cough.  After what...three weeks?  A month?

Remind me next time we go to California to stay away from L.A.

Overall, it was a great time.  Thanks for coming with me, everyone! 

Out

Day 12 - Escape from L.A....

I tried to post this yesterday and as I was typing I found myself back on my home page with no post for some reason...so I'm going to try again.  Forgive me if this one sounds a bit like I am sick of telling this story.  I didn't even want to relive this day once, let alone twice...

I'll say it again:  If you ever get the chance to go to Los Angeles, DON'T GO!!!!!  It was the single most underwhelming, filthy, disappointing, ugly, cheap city I've ever been.  Seriously.  Skip it.



The day started out easily enough.  Traffic into L.A. was surprisingly light.  Even the morning radio show hosts we finally stumbled upon were surprised. 

There was a little bit of fog once we got from El Cajon (where our hotel was) in towards the bay.



And, really, it was a pretty drive spent smiling at each other and loving that we were going to get to see our Marbles Kitty in one more day.  Bittersweet, really.  But finally we made it to L.A.



The air was yellow.  No joke.  There was trash everywhere.  The graffiti was uninspired, ugly, and contained none of the pride and artistic flair of Chicago graffiti, and I'm being completely serious.  It looked painted out of a hurried sense of duty and not out of any personal pride.  I chalked all of this up to it being the outskirts or town...but once we got further in, it was no different.

This building lightened my spirits, though.  How funny!



We decided to hit Grauman's Chinese Theatre first, so we could see the glitzy, glamorous Hollywood side of the city.  Oh, how misguided we were.

The first thing we saw once we parked the car and ventured off of Orange Street was this:



Can you guess whose star this is?  There were people openly weeping over Michael Jackson's star, and his offerings were overshadowing the nearby stars, covering up the likes of Queen Latifah. 

Look at this one, for comaprison.



Poor Farrah.  All alone witout a single flower...

But once we got past that crowd and past the shady people who were trying to sell the mourners bus tours ("See The King of Pop's Famous Haunts!"  So classy.) Grauman's Chinese Theatre was actually pretty cool.



This is where they have the  handprints of celebrities in cement.  It sort of made them seem less untouchable and more like regular people who just had really great jobs.



...or robots.

The Governator has surprisingly small hands:



I was shocked they weren't giant man paws.

We waded trough a sea of Asian teens who were, for some reason, crowding around the Harry Potter slab.



I was unaware of this particular cultural obsession...but seriously, without any exaggeration, we were the only non-Asians trying to take a picture of the thing.  And they didn't seem interested in anything else there.

After that, we decided to hit the Walk of Fame, where they have the stars with celebrities' names on them.  We saw everyone from:



to:



(one of my favorite authors)

to



Seriously.  Godzilla had a star.  I took a ton of photos.  So if there's a star you'd particularly like to see, let me know and I'll email it to you.  I've got about 300 of them.

(For the record, I just had to upload this whole post to a new editor because it kept trying to underline my text for no reason and there was no way I could shut it off.  Once I'm done with this post, I'm going to drink a bottle of wine.  Cripes!)

Oh, let me tell you why L.A. was super underwhelming.  You know how you expect The Walk of Fame to be glitzy?  Glamorous?  Hip?  Trendy?  You picture cute shops and high class bars and stuff along the way, right?  No.  We thought so too, and we were so wrong.  Past Grauman's, it was like souvenir shop, seedy bar, porn shop, lingerie store, souvenir shop, porn store, seedy bar, seedier bar, porn store, dancewear shop, souvenir store, souvenir store, Mc Donald's, porn store, empty storefront, etc.  Oh, and outside of every souvenir shop and some porn stores were people selling bus tours, pushing them on you and not taking no for an answer.  That, or bums.  And this was a MONDAY!

There were times when I thought I was about to get mugged.  It was seriously scary.  What the hell happened to make this area so absolutely shitty?  Ugh.  After about an hour in town we both had headaches (and I don't GET headaches).  We decided to leave the area to try to visit some of the studios.

That area was actually a bit nicer.  We went to Warner Bros.



No famous people to be found.  The studio tour was $45 a person, which isn't that bad of a price, but it was our last day of vacation and we were quite poor, still.  We most definitely didn't have $90 to blow.  I mean, we ate at McDonald's in downtown Hollywood, for god's sake! 

So we left from Warner and went to see if we could find Disney.  We sort of stumbled into it.



There was no one to stop us at the guard hut, so we just follwed the visitor parking signs and got out of the car.  We didn't know quite what to do, so we headed for the most impressive building there to ask for a tour:



Yes, those are the 7 dwarves holding up roof.  It was really impressive, actually.  Check it out.



So we went in, and there was a security guard named Jeff on duty.  We asked him about tours.  He said we could go in any building on the lot except this one, since it was the executive building.  A well dressed man I didn't recognize got out of the elevator and said hello to us...he sort of looked like he expected us to ask for an autograph or something.  And after smiling awkwardly for a second, he walked off.  No idea who he was. 

So, we were still incredulous about being allowed to just stroll around.  I asked, "So, we can just wander around?" 
"Yeah."
"Wow...Warner Bros wanted $45 for a guided tour.  This is great." 
And he stops...looks at us, and goes, "Who aer you here with?"
We just looked at him blankly.  "Ummm...no one?"
I told him we just drove in and parked...that no one asked us to stop at the hut.  He looked REALLY confused, like his brain just did a 1080 or something...
"Oh, then you guys can't actually be here at all."
Robb asked if we could take a few photos of the courtyard and then leave.  He said as long as we promised to ge back in the car and go.  So we did.  I told him he could put my arm behind my back and lead me to my car if it would make him feel better.  He said he didn't really care what we did, that we could probably wander around because he wouldn't run to catch us in this heat.

Ha!

We just took some pictures and got back in the car like nice, honest tourists, sadly.  And then we looked at eachother and went, "DANG IT!!!  We could have just wandered around Disney!"  Yup...we're too honest.

So we drove around looking for the Hollywood sign, going past Capitol Records:



Very famous.

We fially found the sign (it's harder to find than you'd think):



It was also dirty and underwhelming.  Smaller than I thought it would be. 

We had to print out our boarding passes for the next day, so we were pressed to find a library by 4.  I entered a search for libraries into our ever-so-trusty VZ Navigator and it led us through crack town and bumville to a library that was covered in police tape with a big red sign in the broken windows that said "LIBRARY CLOSED!!!"

Eek.

So we looked for another one and ended up here:



and here...



Korea Town (which is HUGE!!!).  We finally just went right downtown into the awful horrible traffic and found a FedEx Kinkos.  Blah.  We both felt sick, so we left the city into horrendous traffic and ugliness.  But we were grateful to be finally leaving L.A.  I needed a shower.

To make up for the horrifyingly disappointing day, we stopped off on a scenic overlook near Camp Pendleton to watch the sunset.  Despite the sore throat and headache, it was romantic.



It was the last sunset we'd see in California for a long, long time.  So we spent an hour or so just sitting, watching the rabbits and each other.



That would be the ocean, a tank track, and me. 

The sun sank lower and lower (while we listened to the Camp Pendleton boys shooting in the distance)...



And finally the day was over...



and we went home to shower and wash the L.A. off of ourselves.  Little did we know that it would stick with both of us far longer than either of us wanted.

Out