California Dreaming - There's No Place Like Home

Last day of California trip, well of California anyway...

On Monday morning, Meri and I got up early!!  She wanted to get a hike in before we headed to the airport. We went to the park that had the waterfall and found this.

 We also found another car with hikers waiting to go in.  They gave up waiting after we all sat in our cars for a while and Meri and I climbed through the gate.  We found a map of the park and routed our way to the waterfall.

The cacti were pretty cool!  Look Maddy!  Succulents!

Along the way, the waterfall must have had some wash outs because some of the path was gone and there were just rocks to climb over.  We did find a pretty snifty bridge that reminded Meri of both bridge scenes of the tv series Harpers Island.  DON'T JUMP!!  

The hills of the gorge we were hiking through butted up to some California's back yards and we only know this because we took a wrong turn trying to find the opening of the park.  If we yelled enough, I'm sure some of the neighbors would throw old vegetables at us from above...  

We found the waterfall after 45 minutes of hiking.

A little underwhelming...  It was more like a moist wall.  

And since it was a dead end, we turned around and started our hike down.  

Half way back and my phone started ringing.  It was an FB messenger video chat with my sisters and parents!  I am NOT going to turn that call down!  So we sat on a branch and chatted for a while.  Got to see the talents of a great-nephew!

Eventually we got to the end of our hike and back to civilization.  Doesn't a fire hydrant protected by boulders symbolize that?  

And someone's washing machine run off.  Meri was more impressed by that than the actual waterfall so she posed for a pic of that.

Then we packed up at the hotel, had a nice breakfast and traveled to LAX.  

We got to the airport and through security fairly quickly.  After some exploring, we had a great lunch before returning to our gate. 

Once we were boarded, the flight was delayed longer and eventually they told us that an engine wouldn't start so we can get off the plane if we wanted to.  A girl sitting next to us had a connecting flight to Toronto so she did.  A little while later, the captain told the rest of us to get off too.  This plane was too broke to fly and they were getting us another.  Yikes!  Better now than over the Rockies, right?

So the girl who had gotten off earlier than us let us budge in line to get our connecting flight to Iowa rescheduled.  "We're with her!"

For a little while.  She was able to get a direct flight instead and off she went.

Then we sat.  and sat.  and sat.  Thankfully there was an available plug in to charge my phone within sight of Meri so I read in my little corner and Meri was all alone on her wall...

We finally got back in the new plane after an hour and a half of waiting and eventually winged it back to Chicago where we flew in a holding pattern until they let us land.  Ice storm...  

Since all the flights out of Chicago were now cancelled, they put us up at a really nice hotel and gave us food vouchers to use at the airport.  

On Tuesday morning, Meri and I went down for breakfast before catching our shuttle back for the 8am flight home.  I got a call from Robb who had been watching our flight and he told me that the flight had been moved to 7pm.  dang.  he was right...  Well, the hotel would only let us use the shuttle up until 10am.  So we took it and headed back to the airport.  

I worked from my laptop for a while since I was supposed to be back to work today anyway.  Meri binged watched a tv show and cried when it got sad.  We explored the airport a lot.  

The underground people mover was intriguing and we had races on it!  Once, when I was supposed to be in the next conveyor belt walkway, I purposefully stepped onto Meri's and ran to catch up wiht her.  She heard the whirring of my carry on luggage wheels and looked over her left shoulder to see where I was and almost fell down out of shock that I was right behind her. HA!

So we got a workout all right...  We made up for it by eating well and getting lots of sugary snacks.

I'm so glad I dieted so much before going on this trip...

Finally got on our flight home and made it back to Iowa around 9:30.  Took the shuttle bus out to our economy parked car and found that it had snowed.  A lot...  The roads around the cars were plowed well, but there were heaps of snow surrounding Meri's car.  As we opened the doors, something blew out.  I thought it was a napkin so I didn't worry much.  But then once we were settled, Meri asked, Where is our parking ticket?!  *gasp*  After looking all around her car inside, she backed out over the snow bank and I went back to search with my cell phone flash light.  FOUND the ticket just casually sticking up out of the snow.  WOW...  Prayers answered!  We didn't want to pay the maximum fine for losing it!

Got home around 10:30pm and Meri stayed over in her room.

We were finally home!!  What a wild ride that was!!

California Dreaming - Day 4 - Beaches and a sign

Back to sunny California!  briefly.

Sunday, day 4

On Sunday morning, Meri and I tracked down how to get to a church that is in fellowship with (the same flavor as) ours.  It turned out, with the lack of Sunday morning traffic, the drive was only 30 minutes or so!  cool...

The pastor and his family were super nice and offered to help Meri with anything she needs when she moves to L.A.  And they have two adorable little girls so Meri will get her daycare fix.  The service was bi-lingual so the Pastor repeated the entire sermon, paragraph by paragraph into Spanish.  Amazing!  Too bad I didn't understand that part, but if I was trying to become fluent in Spanish, this would be the place!

Afterwards, we drove to Venice and found the house (well, the area) where Abby was staying.  The house where she's staying is behind another one and we thought we were lost for a bit.  We stowed the fabric that we wanted her to bring back with her in the trunk of her car and then we set out.  

Lunch at a BBQ place in Venice which had this fabric store right across the street!  Since I'd blown my fabric budget already two days earlier, we didn't even go in.  Just admired from our restaurant.

The three of us drove through the Venice canals, which are beautiful!  

We drove through them several times, because we kept taking a wrong turn.

After speaking with my dad later, he said that he'd been to the canals a LOT when he was in the Marines.  He was stationed near here and an aunt and uncle lived nearby so he'd visit them on his days off.

I gave the girls an address of a beautiful house that we'd see and they'd look it up on Zillow.com to tell us how much it last sold for.  WOWZA, I can not ever afford to live on the canal!!!

Then we drove down into Malibu and I got to see where Malibu Barbie and all her friends live.  And probably where 2.5 men live.  More expensive houses...  

We stopped on the scenic area on Malibu beach and took some pics.

Location location location!

Public restrooms are scarce!  But we looked desperate enough for a Mexican restaurant to let us use their facilities.  Yep - we'll buy some pop there!  Then we headed to the beach!

It was cold!  Not Iowa cold...  but cold enough to wear a jacket and bristle in the wind.  Due to the chill of *gasp* 45 degrees, there were NO muscle bound men on Muscle Beach.  shoot.  I guess they're weenies.

We walked along the Venice boardwalk, after the girls raided the candy store on the corner of course...  Then we cut out onto the beach and saw the sights.

What silly people to surf in this chill!  BURR!  Not Iowa BURR, but still BURR none the less.

The birds were fun to watch and I have more than a healthy amount of photos of this particular one so I could get this photo!  He kept running away from me...

Meri talked me into buying her a sweatshirt to commemorate the day.  I'll never get to wear it...

On the way back to Abby's, she directed us down some side streets to a swanky little street where everything in the shops cost more than my house.  A block away, we drove past a beautiful Ferrari stopped at a stop sign.  We gawked and pointed and as soon as we were past, they peeled out.  

Cue rolling eyes on our part and saying out loud, "Daddy's Car..."

After that, we took Abby home and headed off ourselves.  It was an hour's worth of a drive back, and Meri wanted to see the Universal street all lit up at night.  We found it, but yikes.  While the street walk would have been great, finding parking and a shuttle to see it would have been a nightmare.  Meri was disappointed but she's the one who said "nevermind".  But while we were on that side of the city, I suggested driving out to the Hollywood sign.  She was all for it!

I'm guessing the stars of LaLaLand were flown out to it on a helicopter.  No way did they drive up windy tiny streets lined with houses full of angry people and next to no parking to reach it, as we did.  We drove and drove and was reminiscent of our ascent to Jerome, AZ, where Robb couldn't see the road on the other side of the hood of the car.  Yikes, it was scary!  BUT we made it to the dead end and parallel parked next to someone's bedroom window.  The houses seriously line the streets.  I could have knocked on their window for a glass of water!  But I didn't.

The road below was tame compared to what we drove up.

We walked as far as we could but then thoughts of public restrooms filled our heads again so we took our obligatory photos and headed back.  

I should have brought a hairbrush with me...

and a makeup artist.

 Then we stopped for a pizza on our way back to the hotel.  I don't even think there was meat on this one...  But it was good and I got full, so that's what counts.

 Another great day of our vacation!  

And there was still more to go...

California Dreaming - Day 3 - The reason we went...

Saturday!!!  This was the big day.  The big deal...

Meri and I set our phone alarms for way early.  I don't remember how early, but Meri needed a solid 30-45 minutes to perfect her makeup.  

And  I don't think I told you,  but the night before, Meri talked me into auditioning too.  After she'd gone to sleep on Friday night, I stayed up and browsed 70 and 80s songs to see if I knew anything by heart that I could sing without the music.  

Out of all the songs about drugs, sex, cheating and heartbreak, only one stuck out and spoke to me.

We are family by Sister Sledge.  And for the fact that it WASN'T one of those types and of course it's my theme song for my sisters and me.  Everything these days is about family for me.

Plus I know it by heart, which helped. :)  Mostly the refrain, but I crammed in the first verse too and practiced it in my head every chance I got.

So anyway, Meri did my make up too.  She got into her chevron dress and I pulled on my church clothes.  

We arrived at the Pasadena Convention Center at 4am.  Found parking and walked past a guy climbing over a fence from behind some bushes.  We figured he was a homeless man but he asked if we were here for the auditions.  Then he pulled his tent and family out from behind the bushes also and placed his tent behind us in line.  So some people camped out all night to be first in line...

But even then, since we arrived at 4, (6 o'clock Iowa time), there were only 9 people in front of us.  And it was chilly.  Yeah!!!  I know!!!  California is supposed to be hot!  I'm in a skirt with no nylons and just sandals.  But thankfully, Meri had brought a couple jackets and sweatshirts, so we were warm to a point.  

We got to talking to the people around us.  It was interesting to hear where they were from, what acts they were going to do and why.  Some were way more forceful, telling us that their wife told them to be selfish every once in a while and do this for himself.  So he tried out his comedy act on anyone who would listen.  Another guy handed out his black jack humor (it's a thing!) t-shirts that he had specially printed to advertise his act.  He was 3rd in line I think.  Another was playing his guitar in the rain and looked like a shoe-in for an Ed Sheeran lookalike contest.  He even sounded like him.

The guy in front of us was a classical pianist who had a twist to his act with drum pads and lots of equipment.  He had a daughter who had just graduated college and had just moved out of the house. His name was Johnnie.  

Then LaSange.  I know I'm spelling his name wrong, but I'll be consistent with how I spell it anyway. His voice was amazing, just talking to him.  He sounded JUST like James Earl Jones with a thick accent.  So kind. 

Then there was Minky.  And that's actually her name.  She was from Georgia and had just moved out here three months ago.  She had come here straight from getting off work and so hadn't slept since the night before.  That may have added to her zany-ness, but she and we hit it off immediately.  She was also starving and we offered her some of our food.  She became our side-kick or vice versa for the day.  At 4am, she had no idea what she was going to sing, just that she'd promised her mom that she'd try out.  

And Minky, if I got any of that wrong. Forgive me...

Around 5:30 or 6, it started to rain softly.  sigh...  There goes Meri's hair-do.  She had had it twisted up all night all over her head for a kinky but not frizzy look.  And now with all the moisture, it went flat.  Oh well.  Everyone else got rained on too.  

The lights came on in the hall and after 45 minutes or so, the security people let us come inside.  They went through our bags, wanded us and gave us tickets in the order we came in.  Then we sat in aisles like cattle.  Outside the rain started pouring.  We saw people still in line getting drenched and looking in at us as if they were poor waifs...  They eventually all came inside.  

Meri got her shoes off quick and wrapped them up in the blackjack humor guy's t-shirts.  That worked so great getting blood moving in our feet again that LaSange did it too.  He showed us an outfit that he'd WANTED for this audition.  It was from an African tribal performance, but he couldn't find a seamstress to do it justice, so he was just going to wear a normal suit.  The outfit that he'd wanted was fantastic and I can't find a picture online right now to show you.  But maybe he'll get on the show and you'll see it.  He heard that I sewed and after he asked if I could do it, I said... NOT before you need it and I would not do it justice either...  I still had the gown to make for Meri!

We only were able to sit down for about 20 minutes before the security people hustled us into the next room again.  More cattle ropes and aisles, but we were towards the beginning of the line.  We all got registered  and then sent off to the next building.  Before that, Meri and I got changed and lost our new friends.  But in the next building, we caught up with Minky again.  Never saw LaSange again. 

 Anyone with a number of 50 or below got to line up for the next part of our day then and we were hustled out to another building where everyone sat down again to wait.  

Isn't his hair amazing?  His hair IS his act!

Minky, Meri and I sat off apart from everyone else and chit chatted.  SO much fun.  

About 45 minutes later, we looked up and wondered where everyone was.  We'd filled out our questionnaires and we saw some workers there with stacks of them in their hands.  Uh oh.. were we supposed to give them to someone?  We went over to one of the ladies and found out that we were supposed to sit on THIS side of the room, so our earlier friends were all gone by this time.  She had room in the next group for only 2 of us.  There were 4 now.  Minky, Meri, me and another woman with beautiful hunter green hair.  The green haired chick went but we didn't want to be split up so we waited for the next group.

While we waited and talked, we found that one of Minky's little known fun fact was that she could sound like a baby.  It cracked us up so she added it to the fun fact section on her questionnaire. 

Inside the audition.  Our group of 12 went in.  There was one producer lady at the table with a laptop and a stack of questionnaires.  Another woman was manning the video camera behind her, recording each performance.  So no judges.  Each of us had 90 second to do our thing.  Since our numbers were the lowest in the lineup, that meant that Meri was first.  She had no one else to watch first so she was the baseline performer in our group.  She did great.  A little more volume would have been nice, but everyone had to sing acapella, unless you were playing your own music.

Then I was up.  I sang my song loud and strong.  Yikes.  I shocked myself!  But once you're on that roller coaster, you have to complete it at the same strength...  And suddenly it was over.  As I sat down, the worst headache ever hit me.  I held my head in my hands and that seemed to help it go down a little.  Minky was up next and sang an Alicia Keys song.  She was really good too and knew all the words for just picking a song out of the air...

We got to watch the next 9 acts in our group. One in particular made us want to laugh out loud,but we weren't sure if they were seriously that bad or if they were intentionally bad.  Meri had to try to calm down Minky who was jiggling with laughter.  I won't even tell you about the act, as it might get chosen for the really bad shockers for the show...  and I don't want the person to think they're so laughable if they were dead serious.

Another act was a group of 4 guys.  They called themselves Vo-Kill.  I have no idea if I'm spelling it right, but it's not the one you google...  Three of the men wearing weird animal masks and bloody aprons just stood around bobbing their heads.  The lead singer (after calling out "READY?") climbed out of a body bag and started singing this growly music that Ryan adores.  Apparently so did Minky and the lady at the table.  They bobbed their head like it was a Mozart masterpiece.  Seriously??  That's music??  

After our group got done, the lady told us, especially the wolf mask boys, to go get our picture taken for the AGT promo shot.  They do this every year.  

There was mass confusion outside and none of the workers knew where the photos were to be taken, so we followed the wolf mask and found it eventually.  

We got to see some promo videos get taken and I'll show you them another day.

And we got to be a part of some promo videos!  When the commercials come out, Meri, Minky and myself are dead center behind the people with colorful costumes and right next to the silver robot guy.  

We, as a group, walked across the court yard all excited as if we were walking up to the tables to register.  Then the director yelled, ONE MORE TIME!  If they'd have yelled FORTY MORE TIMES, we wouldn't have stayed.  

So 20 ONE MORE TIME's later, I pulled Meri aside and said, seriously only one more time..  She agreed.

Isn't she both adorable and creepy?

And then they turned the wind blower fan on and we did several more times pushing ourselves into the wind, amidst papers and tickets flying to get to the registration desk.  I'm sure I got a paper cut.  

In between each shot, they had everyone pick up the papers and tickets and hand them back to the guys at the tables.  Then we did it again.  After several more (10-15 maybe) times of having Minky pull us to the front/center of the shots, I called STOP!  

A lot of people had already broken off and the crowd was diminished to a fraction of what it was.  I heard the director yell, ONE MORE TIME!  and we walked away...  

Whew!  We were hungry.  It was 2pm and we realized we hadn't eaten since 4am.  Nor drank anything since then.  What were we thinking??  We looked up how close an IN and OUT fast food place was, since everyone seemed to talk it up out here. It was NOT the Tastee In and Out that I'd grown up with.  But it was delicious burgers.  We got our food and sat with Minky at an outdoor table to eat.  Gave her hugs as if we'd known her forever and headed back to our hotel, which was less than a mile away.  She still had a two hour drive home with no sleep.  I think she made it, as she commented on one of my FB posts the next day.

Back at the hotel, we napped and I woke up with the horrible headache again.  It was bad...  I realized that I was probably dehydrated and that I hadn't gotten my morning coffee, so it was caffeine withdrawal too!  Meri got me a glass of water and made me drink three of them while she went downstairs for a cappuccino for me.  I chugged it all.  Then she gave me a neck massage and I was in such pain that I started to cry and blubber stupid things.  Meri has worked at a daycare long enough to not show me any sympathy.  After asking if I needed to go to the hospital and getting a sobby No!  she made me take another nap and she went down to the lobby so I could sleep.    I'm sure she was thinking that she was stuck and couldn't drive the rental car or get home without me and that I was probably dying.

Well, I didn't.  After my second nap of the afternoon, it was too dark to go on that hike I had promised her.  She wasn't too happy about that, but what can we do, hike in the dark?  I did feel SO much better after the nap, that we drove to a park to see if they were open so we could just drive through it, but the gate was shut.  So we found a sweet little Thai restaurant that served edamame beans as an appetizer as well as other yummy food.  So Meri got her introduction to edamame beans.  She's hooked.

I still didn't feel up to driving anywhere else that night.  Meri wanted to go see some lit up street that she'd found online, but I needed to go back to sleep.  So we watched another episode of Impractical Jokers and then went to sleep.

End of day 3.