California Dreams...

And this is the last one.  The last photo tour chronicling the months leading to the present. After L'abri and traveling Europe a bit, we are now in California in the month of May.  I had the joy of spending this month exploring the Golden State with my dear friend Helen.  It was so fun to be a tourist in California, we tried to experience all it has to offer.  Which I was reminded... is a whole lot.

This was our mode of transportation and in many ways our home.

Making s'mores in Arroyo Grande.

Doing something on the beach in Pismo.  

(dancing?  jumping?  unclear...)

Kayaking in Morro Bay.  Which, by the way, is so much harder than it looks.

This is where our kayak took us... sand dunes.

We drove and walked around the beautiful Montana de Oro.

Then we headed down to Santa Barbara for Westmont's graduation.  Here is the bird and I post-graduation ceremony.

Lauren, me, Helen and Linnea for a picnic at the park with Lauren's family to celebrate her graduation.  yippee!!

Then, because of Nease family connections, we got to take a yacht (yeah, I said a yacht) out into the Pacific.  We saw seals and dolphins.  Quite successful.

Down to Los Angeles.  The Getty.

The Hollywood sign seen through the smog from a gas station.  So glamorous.

Helen and the Village People.  I can't even explain to you how excited she was about this.

Disneyland!!!

The whole family was there.

And it was SO much fun.

Bubby and AP snuggled on the Matterhorn.

And the girls got ears.

Next we continued on south to Lauren's hometown of San Diego.  Here we are at the cliffs watching the surfers and the sunset.

 

And here is Helen petting Lauren's dog Sasha.  Which if you know Helen, you know this is a big deal.  For some reason the friendly fluffy Sasha fell outside of Helen's general fear of dogs.

A night out in San Diego.

And then we headed north again.  We stopped in Long Beach for a couple of days and stayed with the incredible Jason and Marta Jones.  Sadly, I have no pictures.  But the highlight of Long Beach had to be Helen's reaction to experiencing her first earthquake.  After the trembling stopped she began bouncing in her seat and excitedly offered high fives all around.  

Then it was Six Flags.  Which was great because the lines weren't too bad and we both love roller coasters.  But which was not so great because of the 100 degree weather.  I had to actively focus on keeping my complaining about the heat down to a minimum.

And then... Sky Diving!!!

Somewhere in between San Diego and Long Beach we got to talking about how we both went through a period of creating lists of "things we want to do before we die."  We were agreeing how these lists are kind of silly and how their content would have changed drastically from then to now.  But we discovered that one thing we both had on our list, and both still had a desire to do, was sky dive.  So...we did it.  

Back in Arroyo Grande.  Expressing our love for the place.

We then took a drive up the scenic and famous highway 1.  Going at a leisurely pace, stopping frequently to simply stare, it took us the full day, 7 hours, to get to Monterey.  One of our first stops:  The Elephant Seals!

This is Harry.  He is the man who created this beautiful arrangement of flowers alongside of the 1.  He was a cute old gentleman who told us sweetly, "geez, I think I may love you both."  The feeling is mutual Harry, it's mutual.

 

One of the sights in Big Sur.

And here we are in Monterey.  Walking along the wharf posing with the plethora of statues / carved inanimate objects.

We also went to the Aquarium and explored Canary Row of course.

We then continued our journey North heading to San Francisco.

Here we are toasting ourselves in the luxury of the St. Regis Hotel.  

Thank you dad.  And thank you points!

Helen insisted that we take this picture with flowers in our hair.  Fulfilling her dream of living the lyrics "if you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair."  So we rummaged through the weeds and made it happen.

This is just before going to a show at the Independent.  Ever heard of the band the Dears?  We hadn't either.  You probably shouldn't bother.  But we still had a good time.

Back down to Fresno and then a day trip to Yosemite!

They're cute.

So we went up to this place called Glacier Point, it is supposedly absolutely beautiful.  But because of the cloud coverage, the raging thunder storm and the amazing static electricity in our hair, we didn't really take in much of the view.  We spent a good 30 minutes simply looking at each other and laughing at the ridiculous sight.  We then became part of the attraction, tourists were asking to take pictures of our rising hair.  It was hilarious.

And that was our trip, which was officially entitled:  California Dreams, after a television show Helen watched growing up in Scotland.  She sang the theme song frequently, often to my embarrassment.  This month of California travel was an incredible time, one that I did not want to end.  When it was time for Helen to leave it was quite traumatic.  Because who knows when I will see her again, and after living together and being connected at the hip for the past 7 months, quitting cold turkey seemed like a horrendous idea.  And, also, because her departure seemed to truly mark the end of a chapter.  L'abri is over and I am forced to move on, to look ahead and to take new steps.  And that is what I am trying to do.