California Cruisin'

This summer, after three months of worry and stress, and dealing with my mortgage company, filing for unemployment (and remembering to file every Sunday!) I decided to do the adult thing - - - and run away! Oh, not very far, just to my sister’s in California. She lives in the gorgeous little town of Morro Bay (that's Morro Rock to the left), and since her birthday is July 4th, that seemed like a great excuse to run away and try to learn to breathe again. My darling daughter Lori and her husband Kirk encouraged me to go because – after all – I could still look for work on the internet and file on Sunday over the phone, and they would be happy to come by and feed and cosset my kitties while I was gone. Obviously, it took little persuasion before I was in the car, headed for California.

One of the things I discovered about myself many years ago is that, despite the fact that I am a desert rat born and raised (as was all my family), I get to where I miss the ocean something fierce. My sister moved to California when she got married, and she’s been there ever since, so we got to visit her a couple of times a year, and I found that there is just something about walking along the beach, the ocean air, the breeze, the sound of the surf – aaaaaahhhhhhh, heaven! I wish that I could teleport you all to the beach with me, or provide a “scratch and sniff” (click and sniff??) so that you could smell the ocean air, but I guess that’s out of the question.

I love going to visit my sister Gail – we’re alike in so many ways that sometimes it’s scary, other times laughable – but we can go for a drive, go shopping, or just sit and read, and still have fun. We did a lot of fun things while I was there, like birthday parties for her nephew (July 2nd) and her, breakfast at an awesome place in Cambria where we sat and watched seals and (I swear) dolphins, visiting with family, etc. My sister’s younger son had a barbecue for her birthday/ Independence Day – friends, neighbors, and so on. One of the people there was a young teenage boy who, for the holiday, had bright blue hair. He was fake-moaning about how everyone was picking on him about his blue hair, and I said, “Well, I’m certainly not going to give you a bad time - besides, put us with Gail and we're the most patriotic people here, so let’s get someone to take our picture so we can prove it.” It’s such a cool shot – him with blue hair, me with bright red, and Gail with white hair!! What made it doubly funny (and what we didn’t even realize at the time) is that we had red, white, and blue shirts on too!!

It was all so much fun, but when I look back at that week, the thing I remember most, the feeling that comes back immediately, is driving up the coast road toward Monterey, in and out of the fog, windows open, laughing, and enjoying the twists and turns of Highway 101. At one point, I realized that for the first time in months, there was not a bit of tension in my body – just complete and utter relaxation and joy.

Thanks, big sis – I love ya!