My trip flew by in the blink of an eye. My internet connectivity was limited since it turns out Hilton's idea of free wi-fi is only in the lobby and not in guest rooms. I really didn't want to lug my laptop out to the lobby in my pajamas or pay their crazy charges. Plus, I was a major wimp and falling asleep within minutes of Mellisa dropping me off back at the hotel. Which was around 8:30pm.
Here was my view over Texas. I thought the dry riverbed down at the bottom was pretty cool.
These crop circles showed up about five minutes after the dry riverbed.
This view reminds me of scenes from the movie the English Patient. The colors in the pic are identical to what I saw. Looked like a great, sandy desert.
Mellisa met me at the airport which was most excellent. As I was landing I was thinking to myself, "How crazy is this that I'm meeting someone at the airport who I have never spoken to, don't know what she looks like and have exchanged two text messages only the day before?" Granted, we have followed each other's blogs for quite some time, bonded over Great Pyrenees dogs and sent emails back and forth for months. But still. I suppose it was just no crazier than a year ago when Lorelei met me at the Philadelphia airport for Beadfest and we shared a hotel room together for the weekend. :)
We stopped at my hotel to drop off my suitcase and lighten my backpack before we headed up to La Jolla beach and walked around taking in the ocean, tidepools, sea lions, pelicans and all the other sea life. My feet walked on sand, but I thought it was too cold to take off my shoes. Mellisa was much tougher than me against the cold water and sand and walked barefoot.
I believe she said this is called the Children's beach (in the lower left of the picture). It used to be cordoned off for sea lions, but is no longer.
I was mesmerized by the deep green of the kelp covering the rocks and beach at low tide.
See? She's brave. Her flip flops were in her hand. And a big thank you to Mellisa for letting me take her picture. More than once. She was very kind to humor me and my camera. :)
After this little bit of beach, we climbed the steps back up to street level and walked down the strip further to another section of the beach. We passed this warning.
And then...we saw more sea lions. I loved these little groups in all different sizes, colors and patterns. I think the white one in the very bottom/front was the mom. And the brown, fat one to the right was the dad. And then the smaller ones were the pups. But I really have no clue what I'm talking about when it comes to sea lions and their familial relationships. That's just what made sense to me at the time. Mom kept hanging her head over the edge of this rock, which had probably a 10-12 foot drop into the water. She made me nervous. Even though the pups were not unruly...they were actually quite quiet and laid back. But it was like Mom was saying "I've had enough of your bickering. I'm done! And if you don't shape up, I'm going to hurl myself over this ledge!" But she didn't. And I was relieved.
This shot was just beyond the sea lions above. Looks like a rough life for some people to have to live on that hill side. Such a terrible view. I don't know how they stand it.
On our way back to the car, we saw wedding photographers taking pics of this Marine and his bride. I bet they will cherish those photographs for the rest of their life.
I got to meet Mellisa's Hubster AND Nana before we went out for a Mexican deener. It was most delicious! Pictures of the Hubster and Nana to follow in another post :)
Sunday morning, Mellisa picked me up bright and early to go to the Susan G Komen 5K in Balboa Park. We walked so much more than just that 5K and I had an outstandingly superb day with her. I got plenty of photo opportunities, a ton of exercise and plenty of interesting people to see. Save the TaTas was a fairly common t-shirt, but this was the only t-shirt I saw that said Save Second Base. Amen!
I'm not sure of the exact distance from where I was standing to that bridge and church steeple in the distance, but I'm betting it was at least a quarter mile. And the street was packed with people walking shoulder-to-shoulder.
Even dogs were decorated. Hmmmm. This gives me some ideas for Little Horse!
After the walk, we went to Extraordinary Desserts and I consumed this mountain of toasted coconut and a chai latte. I don't want to even think about how many calories were in either, so I'm choosing to believe each had only 50 or so calories.
Mellisa ordered this cake of lemony goodness and a gorgeous design of blueberry sauce spread around it. Which gave me some ideas for beads :)
Once we had consumed our desserts for breakfast, we headed over to the Artists' Village in Balboa Park and spent the next two hours ducking in and out of shops. There were lampworkers, glassblowers, potters, knitters, painters, metalsmiths and basically every kind of artist imaginable with their work up for sale. Basically, it was heaven being surrounded by so much creativity in just a few acres of space. I'm sure it is heaven to many of these artists to have studios in such a wonderful location and be able to work outdoors in or in open-air studios year round.
After we had looked in every shop/studio and I had purchased two glassblown vases that made my heart sing, we headed back to Mellisa's home where she cooked a most scrumptious risotto and shrimp and finished it off with this wonderful chocolaty dessert with vanilla bean ice cream. I'm betting this didn't have any calories, either.
She and the Hubster drove me back to my hotel and I just sighed. I had such an incredibly fun and memorable weekend. Other than wishing to be able to stay awake longer, I can not think of anything that would have made it better in any way.
BIG, HUGE THANK YOUS go to Mellisa for being a most excellent tour guide and friend for the weekend!!!! You can read about our weekend together on Mellisa's blog with her perspective and pictures :)
Tomorrow I will show you pics from the next three days with my friend Sara. Her other half called me early Monday morning to say their newest son was starting the party early and had chosen to be born on Monday, instead of his scheduled C-section for Tuesday. And no moaning over how it must be nice to schedule a birth or skip labor and little coneheads. My girl Sara gets major props for birthing this 10.5 pound baby boy. At 36 weeks, the baby was measuring 42 weeks in weight and length. My girl should get a medal for carrying this watermelon inside her!
And of course I'll show you pics of what will be getting listed in the shop tomorrow night after 8pm EST.
