Hi from California. It's been almost 2 months since we got here - Sarah, Uisce, and I made the long trip in Suzanna (that's the Jeep - Suzy for short) with a UHaul trailer in tow containing Blue Steel (my motorcycle) , some clothes, Sarah's bicycle, and tw0 dog beds.
The drive was a lot of things, mainly I would say too short (timewise not milewise). 4 days and we were within 150 miles of Los Angeles. Leaving Boston around 9 AM, we went through New York and then the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania... at night... in a ferocous thunder storm... on a thin highway occupied mostly by big rigs... it was like in Forrest Gump when Lieutenant Dan weathers the really bad storm riding the mast of Jenny and then after he comes out having made peace with God - that's what I was reminded of anyway. At the end of day 1 we were safely out of the storm and spent the night in the sliver of West Virginia between Pennsilvania and Ohio.
On a side note, our hotel choices each night were limited to the dog friendly accommodations of wherever we have the energy to drive to each night. Most of the hotel's had two queen sized beds - so we'd give Uisce his own bed each night!! Auntie Paula - just kidding - Sarah and I each had our own bed and the dog slept on the floor...
So after a morning jog through the neighborhood around the hotel, trying to avoid the 300 dogs running around off leash, day 2 began with a routine that we would keep for the entire trip to Los Angeles - DRIVE ALL DAY LONG. We didn't pick the most exciting route to drive, but we certainly saw a lot of corn... corn corn corn... corn corn corn corn corn corn corn... corn. 950 miles worth on this particular day bringing us to Independence Missouri where we spent the night.
To be fair it was a really beautiful drive - and we made sure that everyone knew we thought it was beautiful. The phrase "this truly is God's country" became our slogan and was mentioned to the majority of people that we struck up conversations with during our food, gas, bathroom, and sleep stops. I guess it was more of a you-had-to-be-there thing, but we got a kick out it! Everyone seemed to appreciate it and couldn't understand why we had looks of holding back laughter on our faces.
The one city that we timed our trip around was Denver. Both Sarah and I had previously been to Colorado and wanted to stop there for a night, which would also allow us to drive through the Rocky Mountains during the next day so we could appreciate them. We also decided that Uisce is really a wolf and he was born in the mountains of Colorado. This was clearly true by how at home he seemed to feel in the state. That lasted until we took him out to dinner with us in Lo-Do (Lower Downtown) Denver at which point I think he would have ran out of the state if we wasn't leashed. The chef at the restaurant we ate at ended up being from Boston and we talked with him for a bit before calling it a night to continue our trip in the morning.
Utah! Very underrated state that I personally thought was the most beautiful to drive through. There was a roughly 40 mile stretch where the highway ran parallel to a huge mountain range about 10 miles away, and in that ten miles of flat land there were towns spread out with lots of green grass, sports fields, and farms. Looked like a cool place to live... Then there are the yellow, brown, and red canyons of Utah which I couldn't stop thinking about because I knew that not too far from the highway was Moab, which is the Mecca of Offroad Jeep Riding... a slight tease but too much of a detour.
So after Colorado and Utah we drove straight through Nevada to make it into California on the 4th night, stopping in Barstow, less than 200 miles from Los Angeles. We rested up for the night and the next morning made it to LA in hopes of finding an apartment somewhere far away from where they lived in the movies "Friday", "Next Friday," "Friday After Next," and "Don't Be A Menance to South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood." The first apartment we didn't even get out of the car before we decided to move on and check on a few others. The second one, in West Hollywood, was set back of a quiet street in a 4-apartment house in a very nice neighborhood. We looked at the inside, saw the living room with the kitchen bar built off of it, bedroom, parking, and small porch and promptly signed the lease. We've been loving it ever since. There is a coffee shop around the corner (2 doors down) that also makes addicting cakes and desserts and draws a steady crown of celebrities. I don't watch enough TV or read enough magazines to recognize most of them, but Jason Stratham was in front of me a week ago with his pops, and Sarah, her friend Rachel who was visiting, and Uisce saw them filming an episode of Entourage there. Uisce also met Dog the Bounty Hunter last week. Sarah said Dog was petting Uisce and she says "Dog meet Dog!" hahaha - awesome!
So we've been trying to take advantage of our time here and adventure as much as possible. I am working 6 days a week which is making it a lot tougher, but I will follow up soon with posts of a few of our adventures as I think this one is long enough... I hope that I didn't boot all the previous posts off with this one taking up the whole page... I also hope that some of you are actually still reading... anyone? Thanks if you are and come visit me!!! I miss you all very, very much and can't wait to get home and see you all! Lots of love! Paul.
