I Wonder as I Wander…

I love Las Vegas – not!

We’re off again—this time to Las Vegas and California. We flew in to Los Angles on the early morning plane again. I really don’t like that flight—We had to get up at 2:30 am (Central time) to catch a plane. We got to LA around 10:30 am, got off the plane, went to the bathroom and went to baggage and our bags came shortly after. We walked out to catch the Avis shuttle and one was sitting at the curb just getting ready to leave. It took us about 10 minutes to get to the Avis Car rental and since we are ‘preferred’ customers—they drop us off right at our car (which is a VW Beetle!!—cool, we’ve never driven one of those before—although we struggled to get all of our luggage in it). We were on the road shortly after 11 am—we didn’t have too bad of traffic, so got to San Bernardino—which is on the edge of LA by noon.

I had an appointment with an advisor along the way and we decided it would be no problem to get there, so we stopped for a leisurely lunch. The visit with the chapter went very well—I even got to help ‘flock’ a person’s office. They have a bin of pink flamingo lawn ornaments and for a donation you can have them ‘flock’ someone’s office—for a little bigger donation, you can buy insurance against being ‘flocked’. They are raising money for the American Cancer Society. It was fun because their president had a stick with some flowers and a pink flamingo and ribbons that she let this procession of people with a bin full of the flamingos.

We didn’t get to get Vegas and our hotel until around 10 pm—so needless to say, we were pretty tired. The conference went Friday and all day Saturday—they even had a costume ball on Saturday night. It was great fun—some chapters really went all out. One had a guy dressed as Elvis with a lot of screaming women fans around him.

On Sunday we left Vegas and drove north so we could go through Death Valley. The road up there went through rolling hills of dry, scrubby brush. I’ve decided that I really like green—and even the white of snow rather than just brown. Death Valley was really neat—it was nice that we visited in the Fall because it wasn’t too hot. In fact, it was down right cool—especially when we were up at Dante’s view. It was about 45 degrees, but when we got down to the bottom (at 282 feet below sea level) it was 78 degrees. We were able to walk out on the salt flats and it was really neat. There is no way for the little bit of rainwater that they get to flow anyplace, so it just washes the salt down to the bottom and then evaporates. Some of the roads into canyons were absolutely beautiful--lots of interesting rock formations and colors--one road was called Painted Canyon. We hiked into one canyon--it was a great time of year, because it wasn't too hot.

We checked in to our hotel in Ridgecrest—which is city that’s surrounded by a military weapons testing area and lots of high desert—again brown and dry. Our room had a Jacuzzi in it, so we had a chance to really relax. It’s too bad that we were only there one night. The next day we drove through San Bernardino to the LA suburb, Moreno Valley. It’s been really hot, dry and windy--and the radio was talking about the Santa Ana winds and fires that were burning in some of the valleys. We were on I 215 around 3:30 pm and then heard that there were fires burning so close to the highway that it had to be closed around 5 pm.

Moving every single night isn’t too much fun, so we found a hotel in Santa Monica where we could stay for three nights and be able to drive to my appointments. The first college we visited was up on a hill that faced the ocean. They had a rose garden with benches and a deck off their cafeteria that had a fabulous view. The advisor said sometimes her husband will come over for supper and they will have a date night out on the deck of her school. WOW!! It was also a Catholic school, so I ended up going to Mass with the advisor.

That evening we went to a seafood restaurant that was right on the beach in Malibu. We had to wait for a while, so we strolled a ways on the beach, but it was already dark.

One chapter that I visited had an event called ‘pizza and politics’ which included a group of 5th graders who told the crowd why it’s important to vote—they were so cute. It was followed by a forum where two speakers talked about the platforms of McCain and Obama. It was in the quad of the college—which was a beautiful area, although it was in the sun—so we were sitting in the hot sun for a couple hours.

We then headed to Santa Clarita—which is north of LA in the Canyons. It was really pretty (although pretty brown). We had time to grab a late lunch, so went to a Coco’s. It’s a chain something like Applebees or Dennys—with pretty good food. The next day the chapter I visited was another Catholic College—the advisor’s office was in what used to be the Mother Superior’s private bathroom--although it was actually pretty good sized--better than what Bob had at one time.

After that appointment, we got on the Pacific Coast Highway—which goes right along the ocean. We followed that to Ventura and then went to Santa Barbara, which is a wonderful city right on the ocean. Our hotel wasn’t right on the beach, but we just had to cross a couple roads and we were there, so we went walking that evening. On Saturday, we went out on the beach, and walked for quite a ways, then made a nest and settled in for soaking up the sunshine (in fact got a little sunburned on my back and the back of my legs), but it sure is nice to nap on the beach.

That evening we went to a restaurant that used to be a stagecoach stop, Cold Spring Tavern. The road we were taking wound through the mountains and we saw our turn off just before a really high bridge—so we decided to keep going. Gertie (our GPS) had a fit—because we were supposed to turn on Stagecoach Road. After a couple miles there was another Stagecoach Road, so we took that. There was a sign on it that said “Road not maintained, but we decided to keep going”. The road was really neat with lots of trees, cliffs and winding roads. We went underneath the huge bridge and were clinging to the side of a cliff on a narrow road when Gertie piped up “Cold Spring Tavern” on right—all that was there was the side of a mountain. Another ½ mile and suddenly there were cars parked all along both sides of this narrow little road. We found it!! It consists of several old log buildings that include a bar, restaurant and antique shop. The food they served included wild boar, rabbit, venison, as well as the traditional menu items. I had the rabbit and it was delicious—had wild mushrooms and a rich sauce. The restaurant wasn’t very busy—we were surprised.

Sunday morning, we found a Lutheran Church and went to a service (I’m so thankful when churches have web sites, so you can find our their schedule.) It’s always fun to visit with people, because so many of them have roots in Minnesota. The pastor was new—in fact hadn’t been officially installed yet. He had gone through Luther Seminary and was a pretty good friend of a friend of ours.

We decided to drive around the area rather than take our sunburned bodies back to the beach. We had seen an article on a Lemon Festival in a neighboring town—with lemon cotton candy, lemon pie, lemon slushes, etc—so we drove over there. This town wasn’t very big, but we sure couldn’t find the park or a place where there would be 10,000 people (what the paper said had attended on Saturday). So we gave up and went driving through the mountains.

We saw a road called painted canyon and thought that might be a good one to check out. It ended up being a really windy road that was only one lane. It went up and up and up through wonderful mountains. We wondered if our little beetle would make it to the top or not, but she kept chugging away. Suddenly we came around a corner and here was a settlement of houses! I couldn't believe people would go up that winding, twisting road to get to their house--later, we discovered another road that was much straighter to get there.

We wondered if we should go back to the Cold Spring Tavern, so drove down the winding road that went to it—about a mile before we got there, we started seeing cars parked on both sides of the street—the place was absolutely packed! OK—we won’t stop there.