For the month of September, in celebration of my 25th birthday, I took off work, packed up, headed west for California, then east for Florida, and go up along the east coast to NYC [which I ended up cutting out due to money and I wanted to save it for another time]. I went out on this adventure alone, and stayed with friends on both coasts. I saw and experienced a lot of wonderful things. I even learned a little about myself.
WEST COAST:
-Monday, September 6
I woke up nervous as hell about driving all the way to California by myself. I almost even talked myself out of it, but I couldn't because I didn't want to look like a chicken. I didn't start getting excited till nearly Oklahoma. Once I crossed that boarder, I knew I could do it. I stopped in Amarillo, TX, for the night. All along the way, I checked in on this application called 4Square so everybody would know where I was. I also sent pictures to my parents each day of what I was wearing for the day just in case I got "got." So anyway, the drive to Amarillo was WINDY! I saw the most beautiful sight...windmills. BEAUTIFUL.
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| Oklahoma |
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| <3 |
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| Texas. |
-Tuesday, September 7
I continued on to my next destination Flagstaff, AZ. New Mexico and Arizona were beautiful. Mountains everywhere!
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| Route 66 |
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| Arizona |
-Wednesday, September 8
I drove to the Grand Canyon. After entering the park, and driving, not really knowing where I was supposed to park, I looked to my left and I swear...what I saw literally took my breath away. I had to find where I was supposed to park because, after seeing that, I was anxious. I've never seen anything like that in my life. There was many times the the past three days that made my eyes tear up because of the beauty, but this definitely topped every other moment. I walked around for the better part of 2 hours taking pictures and taking in everything. I wish that I could've seen the Northern Rim too (I was at the Southern Rim.) I left the Grand Canyon and headed on towards LA. I stopped in Orange for the night because hotels in San Clemente were a little on the pricey side.
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| Right outside of Flagstaff heading to the Grand Canyon |
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| Zoomed in on this older gentlemen from far away, he was so tiny. |
Thursday, September 9
I slept in a little, knowing that I don't HAVE to be anywhere else because I was right where I wanted to be. I drove down to San Clemente, and it was amazing how I could remember street names and locations since I was only a kid when I was there before. It was chilly so I had to wear a hoodie down to the pier....I had wanted to stay there all day and watch the sunset [I'd seen one every day driving, chasing it...and I had finally caught it] and drink a Shirley Temple like my dad and I used to do. I didn't though because I went to meet up with Alex for a little bit and Courtney. I'm ahead of myself. I ate at a little sandwich shop by the beach and had a California sandwich, as I like to call it. When I went to pay, the lady asked me, "Are you from Kentucky or something?" I said, "No, I'm from Arkansas, why?" And she replied, "You're just so polite!" I laughed to myself. Who knew being polite would set you apart from everyone else?
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| I belong here. |
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| San Clemente |
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| Toes in the Pacific |
I left San Clemente heading to Burbank to meet up with Alex so he could give me a short tour of the Disney/ABC studio. That was really cool because it's not open to the public so they don't give tours or anything like that. You have to be on a list in order to even enter the premises. Connections!
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| On the list... |
I left Burbank to meet up with my cousin, Courtney, in Santa Monica. She wasn't off work yet, so I walked around this one neighborhood that had a Marshall's and what I realized after walking around the neighborhood must have a heavy Asian population...I couldn't read many of the store signs! When she got off work, we drove around for nearly an hour trying to find a spot to park my car overnight (who would've thought you can't just park you car anywhere all willy-nilly?!) FINALLY found a residential neighborhood and headed to Oxnard. On the drive to her home, we talked about boys and relationships and something she said kind of stuck with me. "I went to grad school, and as soon as I'm done with this internship I'll have a masters. I want a man with the same education level as me. I went through all that schooling that I should be with someone just as educated." Granted, that's not exactly word-for-word what she said, but you get the gist. It really does make sense. Anyway, that night we went to eat at BJ's with her friend and her friend's boyfriend. When we go back to her house for the night, we watched the first episode to the first season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." I've never watched that show before, but I became a fan that night. So funny!
Friday, September 10
We ate at In-N-Out. It wasn't spectacular to me, but it was something I was told I HAD to try. We hung out a little before heading back to Santa Monica. After dropping me off, I started driving to meet up with Alex again, but stopped at Venice Beach for a few minutes. I didn't stay long enough to brag about since Alex said we were going there later in the weekend. What should have taken me about 30 minutes without traffic, took me about an hour and a half to get from where I was to where I needed to be. Jeez! I got a better tour and pictures of Alex's work place. Pretty freakin' sweet if you ask me.
After Alex got off work, we went to his cool neighborhood of Los Feliz. Alex was such a good host. He let me have his room, while he took the couch. That night he took me to a weird store with any little weird nic-knack you could ever want called Wackos. And then a record store called Amoeba with probably any music you could ever want to listen to (except PMtoday, they didn't have them.) We ate at Fred 62. The waiter made me giggle with his ironic mustache, I wish now I would've got a picture of him on the sly. We drove around after that looking to see if we could find any Banksy. No luck. Went down to the Staples center (Michael Jackson's funeral was here). They were setting up for the VMA'S, which we didn't realize till the next day. Went up the Muholland Drive to have an over look of the city. Amazing.
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| Wackos |
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| View of L.A. from Muholland Drive. |
Satuday, September 11
We (Alex & I) walked from his house to Griffith Observatory. I got to see the Hollywood sign and see downtown LA. The VMA's were being set up for Linkin Park to play (later found out that it was a "top secret" location, but we knew the secret!) The Greek Theater is also in Griffith Park. We ate at the Alcove, and I had the best wrap ever. Went back to his place to get cleaned up so we could go to Hollywood. I've always wanted to see Marilyn Monroe's star & hand/feet print. It was pretty surreal that I, after all these years of being a MM fan, was finally getting to see it in person. I got to see all the touristy stuff as well. After that, we went to Westwood Cemetery where MM is laid to rest. It was serene and there were many epitaphs that made me tear up when reading them, and some that made me laugh. You wouldn't believe how COLD it got from the time we left Hollywood to the time we got to the cemetery. I had to put on my coat! We left there and headed to Inglewood to hit up Randy's Donuts. I got an apple fritter. We went on a search for Banksy again, and this time we found something! We were so excited! We ate at Simply Thai. I tried Pad Thai again, and this time I liked it (had it in DC and didn't really care for it). I sampled his dish that included tofu as well...interesting to say the least.
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| Griffith Park |
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| Greek Theater |
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| The Hollywood sign |
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| Griffith Observatory |
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| Grauman's Chinese Theater |
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| This made me happy. |
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| Randy's...I had an apple fritter, it was good! |
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| BANKSY! |
Sunday, September 12
My last full day in California and we spent it on Venice Beach. We walked down the strip and ate. Weirdos and medical marijuana everywhere. It was definitely a culture shock. We rented bikes and rode down to the pier and took pictures. Biked the other way to Muscle Beach, but sadly the muscular men weren't there working out. It was a cold day, unfortunately, but nonetheless fun. We called it an early day since he wanted to relax before having to start the work week the next day. We ate from a taco truck...delicious chicken burrito. We watched the season finale of True Blood with his roommate, Stacy...I felt like I was back at home watching it with Amber and Trey. I'm sure they thought I was silly when I got all excited about Godrick making an appearance.
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| Our bikes. |
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| Looking at Venice beach from the Santa Monica pier. |
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| Alex and me. |
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| Should've hugged him. I'm all about free. |
Monday, September 13
This day came too soon. In hindsight, I really do wish I would've spent more time in California, but I was in a rush to get to Florida for my birthday. I drove about 15 hours and stayed in Tucumcari, NM, for the night.
Tuesday, September 14
I drove on to Little Rock and stayed the night there. Woke up late the next day, so I just went to Monticello for the night, so I could leave from there to Jacksonville, FL. During my drive all I could think about was "Holy crap! I'm turning 25! What the hell am I doing with my life?!" I arrived in Jacksonville around 7 PM on Thursday, September 16. It was nice to see my lil' pregnant Siobhan. She's not showing a whole lot, but you could see her little baby bump.
Friday, September 17
I went to the beach for a little while. My thoughts for the day, "I'm 25.....now what?" Siobhan threw a party for Elyse and me.
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| Toes in the Atlantic ocean. |
We didn't do too much while I was there, which was fine. We did a little shopping, ate, I got to go to the beach, saw Siobhan's family. I did all what I wanted to do. Low maintenance part of my month. I enjoyed seeing everyone I hadn't seen in a a while.
Monday, September 20
I left for Monticello where I was staying for the rest of the week. Just spent some time with Nana, Mom and Ayden mostly. Got to hang out with Kimberly for an evening as well. Everybody else was busy as usual. I left Monticello on Saturday to go to Hot Springs to spend the day on Lake Hamilton with Amber, Trey, Drew, Richard, and Rhonda.  |
| Back in my home state. |
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| Ayden at the fair. |
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| I come from a small town. |
September 26-October 4 I spent just hanging out in Little Rock, not doing much at all, which made me wish even more that I would've spent more time in California because I didn't like all the down time. Tuesday, Lukas, Marcus, and I went to Pinnacle Mountain. That night I went to Nocturnal at Juanita's and chatted with Jeremy most of the night. Wednesday, Marcus and I went to Glenwood to go to Albert Pike. Thursday, I hung out with the Prewitt's. Friday, I found out some "interesting" information about Marcus which caused us to stop talking all together in a matter of days. It upset me, so I went down to Monticello on Saturday to hang out with Kimberly and we went to Monroe.
To wrap this up, I had a really wonderful time. I wish I wouldn't have rushed everything. Maybe I would've learned more about myself. Maybe I wouldn't have even come back to Arkansas. Okay, that was a long stretch considering I had unfinished business here. I know one thing is for sure, I will be making more road trips like this!
