"C'mon honey, it's time for your pill..."

Days 9 & 10

Wednesday, May 14th & Thursday, May 15th: Los Angeles. Laughter. Tears. Music. Chain smoking. Pacific Coast Highway.

We both awoke surprised that we had actually fallen asleep so early. I blame the melatonin. I brought extra along knowing that Ben has insomnia too, and by the end of the trip it had become a joke, because I felt like a mom giving him his medicine each night. But hey, it worked. We both slept well the whole trip.

We drove along the Highway 1 all the way back to L.A. The ocean was magical. It sounds cheesy, but that's always been the only way I know how to describe the ocean-- magical. But soon the smog re-appeared, and we knew we were back in LA. We drove to Ben's uncle's house, which was an experience in itself. He lives in a large mansion near Malibu with an ocean view. The house was beautiful, full of art and expensive furniture but it felt a little empty at the same time. Wealth intimidates me.

Josh (Ben's uncle) was very accommodating. We each got our own enormous, comfy beds for the night. He took us out to eat at a place called Hal's in Venice Beach. We discussed politics (he's a Hilary Clinton fan while I'm all about the Obama. It ended up being okay though :)

The next morning was rough. We had to wake up at 4am to return Sally to Alamo and get me to the airport on time, and I still barely made my flight. It was difficult to say goodbye to Ben. I despise goodbyes. I hate airports. I didn't want the trip to end.

But in less than 3 weeks, I will be headed back out west to start a new chapter in my life.

"Remember Big Sur?"

Day 8

Tuesday, May 13th: Morro Bay. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. Crack wood.

I woke up thoroughly refreshed from the spiritual, cleansing experience at Esalen the night before. It had been recommended to us that we try a particular coffee shop before we left Big Sur, so we headed there after checking out of the campground. The coffee shop was very fun and cute, complete with a very fun and cute barista.

We took Hwy 1 down to our next campsite at Morro Bay. When we arrived, we found that in contrast to camping at Big Sur, this campsite was little more than a parking lot. We were unimpressed. We decided to head into town to peruse instead of hanging around.

In town we found lots of cute little shops. The town was really quaint, without a whole lot of tourists. We bought taffy and ear candles. I found a bracelet that I liked thrift shopping. We tried to kill as much time in town as possible, as neither of us wanted to return to the compact parking lot that was more like a communal campsite than the nice, private one we had at Big Sur. I spent a lot of the night missing Big Sur.

We eventually returned to our site for dinner. We found that our awesome wood (which must have had something sprayed on it-- we called it crack wood) had been stolen. That was irritating. We burned our tuna melts over the fire. We didn't feel like setting up our tent, so we got ready for bed and got comfy in the car. I looked at my phone, it was 9:30. Lame. Ben wanted to drive aimlessly. I wanted to save gas. I won. We went to sleep.

"So, are you two married?"

Day 7

Monday, May 12th: Big Sur. Esalen. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. XM46.

We spent more time at Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park. They have a lodge, which features a gift shop and accomodations for those who want a camp-like experience without sleeping on the hard ground. We charged our phones up at the lodge, had some coffee, and went on individual hikes. I went to Pfeiffer Falls, a hike which was the perfect length for me. When we met back at the campsite we drove to Julia-Pfieffer State Park about 15 minutes south to see waterfalls that meet with the ocean. Each of us spent some time wondering why signs like "do not hike down to the falls" made us want to do just that.

The rest of the afternoon was spent perusing little gift shops in Big Sur on Hwy 1. We found a cute little set of shops called Luna Vista, where Ben put together a beautiful arrangement of plants in an old gourd to give to his sister. I met a local artist who owned a small art shop there and bought a print.

At some point in the day we discovered XM46, a station that played nothing but amazing songs. The Doors, Tom Petty, the Beatles, Rush... it may sound like your typical classic rock station, but I swear none of the songs sucked-- ever! It was just understood from then on that this was the only station we would listen to.

We had a few hours to kill before heading to the Esalen Institute, a spiritual retreat in Big Sur with hot springs overlooking the ocean. They are pretty exclusive, and only let guests in to the hot springs from 1-3am by reservation. We spent most of our time in front of the fire before heading out to Esalen.

The anticipation was truly worth it. It was my first hot springs experience, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to top it. We watched the moon set, and saw every star imaginable in the clear night sky. It was breathtaking. At some point, some girls asked if we were married. I just thought it was odd. If I met two complete strangers, I would ask how they knew each other before assuming they were married. I guess that's just me though. I blame Ben for not setting off enough gaydar.

"Why do my lungs hurt?"

Day 6

Sunday, May 11th: Big Sur. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. My lungs hurt.

At some point in the early morning hours/the night before, Sally was christened. We decided to name her after the KOA park ranger who appeared out of nowhere, who we decided was also named Sally. Before we went to sleep, we kindly asked Sally to make us invisible to any scary people who might walk by our car. She listened well, and the windows were fogged up when we awoke, to make us perfectly undetectable to passersby.

We drove to the beach for breakfast. It was cold but beautiful, of course. Ben found an enormous hill of sand to run up and down. I tackled it once, and my asthma didn't cooperate very nicely. When we got to Pfeiffer-Big Sur State Park we set up the tent and then went our separate ways for some peaceful time to ourselves.

We regrouped for dinner, only realizing after we made our hotdogs that we weren't supposed to cook over the firestarter. Oh well, we're bound to get cancer somehow. We had some good conversation by the fire. I've decided that fire is much better than television.

"Sh*t. Josh lives in LA..."

Day 5

Saturday, May 10th: San Francisco. San Rafael. Bolinas. Laughter. Tears. Music. Chain smoking and hookah-ing.

Long day. Started out the day with Peet's coffee and headed north to San Rafael. San Rafael is where my mother grew up for a time, and where her mother, who died when she was 6, is buried. We found Mount Tamalpais Cemetery pretty well without directions, but as no one was in the office it took us awhile to find her grave site. I left her some flowers. It felt strange, like saying hello and goodbye at the same time.

After we left I was feeling surprisingly emotional. I thought it was strange to cry for a grandmother I never knew, but I think that more than anything I was heartbroken for my mom. The void that she grew up with became real, concrete, and engraved on the ground in front of me. The grave site visit set the tone for a difficult day for me.

We then headed west to a small whaling town called Bolinas, to visit Ben's friend Annie's parents and eat lunch at their house. The town was adorable, and their house was beautiful-- simple and open, with lots of plants. They have wolves in their backyard, and we got to pet them! Yep, wolves! We also had a delicious lunch, of which red cabbage was the highlight.

After Bolinas it was back to San Fran, as the plan was to stay the night with Ben's uncle. I was half asleep for this conversation, but I believe it went something like this:

Ben: Hey Josh, we're headed over the bridge right now.
Josh: The bridge? What bridge?
Ben: The Golden Gate Bridge.
Josh: Are you in San Francisco?
Ben: Yeah...
Josh: Um, I live in L.A.

What followed was much swearing, followed by much laughter. Though Josh had previously lived in San Francisco, he had been living in L.A. for about 5 years and Ben failed to remember this.

So we parked somewhere in the city and searched for a place with wireless to plug in my computer so that we could figure out where we could stay for the night. At this point we'd been with each other for 24 hours a day over 4 days. The city was feeling a bit suffocating. I was still feeling fairly emotional from the grave site visit, overwhelmed with thoughts of having to leave my family in the coming month, and on top of it I was PMSing. It was not good. We found a starbucks, and decided to go to a Mediterranean restaurant and hookah bar that night before heading south to a KOA. I had a good cry on the way back to the car. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not much of a crying girl, but it was what I needed.

The restaurant was lovely. I had lamb and we watched a belly dancer and smoked honey-flavored shisha. Afterward a homeless woman asked for my leftovers, but as I was about to give them to her I found out she was a vegan. Only in California.

We headed to the KOA, and despite the fact that Ben had been promised by the man on the phone that they would have vacancies, it was full. As we parked at the KOA and tried to figure out a plan, I smelled something burning. You see, our car's windows weren't designed for smokers. Every time a cigarette was disposed of out the window, it would come dangerously close to flying back in the car. This had been a funny, "haha, what if that happened" thought... until it actually happened. We might have been more efficient in finding the burning cigarette if we had been able to STOP LAUGHING. No such luck. We doused the hole we thought it had fallen in with water and simply tried not to pee our pants. In the midst of this, a park ranger (a kindly old woman) appeared out of nowhere and scared the bejeezus out of us. I explained that we had a lit cigarette somewhere in the car and were laughing because we were tired, but I'm sure she was still convinced that we were on something. When we calmed down (we never did find the cigarette... oh well), she directed us toward a couple other campsites. Neither of those worked out either, and we ended up just pulling over on a dirt road and sleeping. It was quite a night.

"Excuse me, can you direct me toward the gays?"

Day 4

Friday, May 9th: San Francisco. Castro and Haight-Ashbury. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. Lots of getting lost.

We decided to peruse San Fran for the day, and spent most of it hitting up little shops in both the Castro district (gay mecca) and Haight-Ashbury. We couldn't find the Castro district for a bit, and during this period of time many gay jokes were made. I learned the freedom of being un-PC. I need more gay friends.

We parked in a random neighborhood and found someone's steps to eat on. We passed by jillions of smoke shops. I found a shop that sold crack pipes. We got ice cream at Ben and Jerry's and had dinner at a cute little cafe with some very fun waitresses.

After spending the entire day exploring the city, we had tickets to an Atmosphere concert. It only took us a little over 2 hours or so to find. Luckily, Ben and I both deal with frustration by chain smoking and laughing. A lot. The concert was interesting. I'm not a big rap fan, and apparently smoking weed at rap concerts is something I know nothing about. It was a new experience. We both left with beer spilled all over us and the smell of weed permanently embedded in our clothing. It was a hell of a day to be sober. How many people can say they went to Haight-Ashbury and a rap concert--on the same day-- and stayed completely straight? Craziness!

I loved Haight-Ashbury, the concert was great, and San Fran is fun all around, but at times the city felt soaked in drugs and alcohol. The past three weeks of sobriety has given me great perspective.

"Ben, this isn't Europe..."

Day 3

Thursday, May 8th: Big Sur. San Francisco. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking (but not on the boardwalk)...

We crashed pretty hard after the previous endless night of driving. We woke up just before check-out time and headed out to Hwy 1 (right along the coast) which we eventually took from LA all the way to San Fran and back. We pulled over at a turn-out to eat our breakfast. I fashioned a spoon-like device out of the top of my yogurt and declared that I no longer needed cutlery for the rest of the trip.

We drove north to Santa Cruz where we explored the boardwalk for a bit and then decided to take a nap on the beach. Ben got confused, apparently thinking we were in Europe where clothes don't matter, and took a nap in his skivvies. Despite the screaming children, it was actually a really nice nap. When we woke up we ate various deep-fried vegetables (zucchinis, artichokes, and something else that I don't remember) and got back in the car to make our way to San Francisco.

That night we ate pizza with brooke and her boyfriend Yak, our accommodations for the night. We had a great time just relaxing and chatting at brooke's place, and brooke, Yak, and Ben seemed to enjoy making nerdy jokes about anti-virus software. Tucker wasn't all that excited to see me, which was slightly disappointing but somewhat expected. I accidentally stepped on his tail a couple of times, so I think we're even.

"Why am I barefoot in a cactus garden?"

Day 2

Wednesday, May 7th: Rancho Mirage. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. Hannah gets a new job.

We woke up a little early so that I could get ready for my interview and Ben could get his caffeine fix. No more than 30 minutes in my interview clothes and I spill yogurt on them. Nice. We make our way to Rancho Mirage for the interview and arrive in town about an hour early, which turns out to be a very good thing since we can't find the place for the life of us. We ask a local woman, who says to "head down an alley" to find it, and she ends up being right. It's fairly hidden away, which is understandable. Security is tighter than I am used to-- also understandable. Ben drops me off and I have a minor crisis in which I realize I forgot to switch from flip-flops to heels and I am still wearing my nose ring. I frantically text Ben, who returns with the car. Crisis averted. The interview goes amazingly well; so well that they offer me the job then and there. I'm ecstatic.

After the interview (and texting everyone I know with the good news), I change and we drive out to Joshua Tree National Park. We only plan on being there for a couple of hours, but end up spending most of the day pulling over to the side of the road to climb rocks and take pictures. The weather in the desert was perfect and everything was so beautiful! We had a great time interpreting rocks... Ben found one that he named "Butt crack rock." I forgot our vow to save our cigarette butts and toss them when we got out of the park. Yes, I littered in a National Park. Yes, I am a terrible, terrible person.

After finally leaving Joshua tree, we stopped at a local saloon for dinner. They were having free taco night, so we each got tacos and soda for $3. It was pretty thrilling. The lady behind the bar convinced us to stick around until karaoke started, and Ben did a great rendition of "Damn, I wish I was your lover" with her before we left.

Then began our epic journey to Big Sur. We had reservations at Pfieffer-Big Sur State Park for the night, which was 8 hours away, and since we couldn't bring ourselves to leave Joshua Tree until about 8pm... well, you do the math. The night was full of windy roads that we took too fast and tons of exhaustion-fueled laughter. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard... over nothing. We finally got to the campground, and slept in the car since we were both far too tired to set up the tent.

"Maybe the numbers start over..."

Day 1

Tuesday, May 6th: LA. Hugs. Laughter. Music. Chain smoking. Hannah's directional retardation begins to reveal itself.

My arrival in LA. I had to transfer flights in Dallas, but due to some storms my flight was delayed in landing and I missed my connection. Thankfully they fit me on the next flight possible, but the whole thing was quite a headache.

Ben waited at the airport for a couple of hours since his flight had gotten in before mine. I believe his adventures included meeting some germans and "hiking" LAX with his backpack. I was feeling pretty gross by the time I saw him, but was grateful to see him nonetheless. It was surreal to see his face after almost 6 months.

We headed to Alamo to get our rental car. Since I knew we'd be in the car a lot and we are both smokers, I asked if they had smoking vs non-smoking cars. The guy behind the counter snappily replied, "they are all non-smoking cars, but we can't control what you do." Ha.

We then chose our car, which almost ended up being a minivan due to the lack of economy cars. Thank goodness for Sally (our car, which was unnamed until Day 6). We had tickets to a Laura Veirs and Liam Finn concert for later that night, so we decided to head toward the venue and find a place to eat. On our way we met a not-so-friendly pothole and spotted Michael Jackson driving around in his Bentley. We also encountered a woman on the freeway who bared her teeth at us. That was lovely. After much searching, we found an In-n-out Burger which we both got to experience for the first time. Ben was glad that they understood what animal fries were (he once tried to order them at Jack in the Box).

The concert was a great time-- once we got to it. We originally stood in line for some band (Tim and Eric?) before realizing we were at the wrong place. But yes, both of the acts were awesome. We then made our way to Studio City to stay at my friend Mike's.

Post-Cali Rundown

Written at about 7am west coast time:

As the plane takes of from LAX, there is an enormous amount of sadness in my heart that I cannot shake. California has been life-changing. There's no other way to put it. I cried when I got on the plane, sitting between two perfect strangers who I'm sure were a bit uncomfortable. There are many elements to my sadness. I miss Big Sur. I miss my caffeinated Ben (not to be confused with under-caffeinated Ben-- they are two entirely separate people). I wish the trip had been longer. I even miss the ash-filled rental car, Sally. And I'm facing a tough couple of months ahead of me. In the next month I will be saying goodbye to many good friends and move even farther away from my incredible family. Beyond that I will be moving across the country, to a beautiful place with mountains and sunshine where I don't know a soul.

I got the job. I don't want to say the name of the place here for various reasons, but you can find a link to it here. It's an amazing opportunity and I could not be more excited, optimistic, thrilled, and scared out of my mind. It looks like I will be moving in a little over a month, tentatively leaving on the 16th of June. Insane.

What will follow in the next couple of days is a day to day rundown of the trip. I also have quite a few changes to make to my list of 101 things, so I'll be updating that too. Given the 3 hours of sleep I got last night, I'm now going to make a half-assed attempt at sleeping on the plane.

I'll post some pics as well in the next couple of days, though Ben has the majority of the trip's pictures on his decidedly superior camera, so those will have to wait. Here's one of us in the airport this morning before we went our separate ways. Do I look happy? Well, I'm not. I'm definitely about to cry. Boo for leaving. Boo.



P.S. This makes me so proud to be a future Californian!