{Finally} Home

And it does feel like home. Sort of. I mean, I've only been here a couple days. But, I'm starting to get my bearings in the "city" {we don't really live in the city, really more like out in the country. But we're pretty close to a WHOLE lot of stuff!}. I'm recognizing street names, and kind of have an idea about the layout of the towns. This place is so cool...for example, Sunday Matt and I were driving back from the city {LA} and decided to stop at Costco on the way home. It being Sunday, Costco didn't open for another hour. What were we to do? Well, I looked at the map, and found Stough Park which looked really cool and wasn't too far to drive. Well, we drove up there, and it was awesome. I wasn't wearing the right shoes, so we didn't hike around, but we looked around and enjoyed the pretty scenery and the wildlife {mainly birds}. Yesterday, Matt and I went Craigslist shopping and decided to go hiking in the afternoon. We went hiking the fire trail in the Verdugo Mountains. I'll have Matt upload the amazing pictures later. I can't seem to upload them. I guess I should upload the pictures from my drive and Mom's visit here. Did I mention how much fun we had? We got in a day early, Thursday, so all day Friday we went sight seeing. It was so much fun. We drove through Burbank, and saw some of the movie studios.

 

  

Can you guess which one this is? 

Then we drove to Hollywood Blvd., walked down the Walk of Fame, and went to the Chinese Theater.

Mom saw so many stars she knew! She wanted pictures by Cary Grant and Julie Andrews. Good choices! Next, we drove down Sunset Strip toward the Santa Monica Pier. Found free parking {Score!} and walked down to the beach. Mom HAD to feel the water :)

 

That's the pier in the background. We decided to check it out. Evidently it is the end of the Historic Route 66!

How fun! 

We didn't try the Ferris Wheel, though. Hmm...Maybe next time :)

After a long day of driving, we decided to go check out the view from the top of our hill. It was a lot clearer than in the morning. (Early morning fog.) But I don't have the world's greatest camera, and here's what I got....

You can kind of see the valley behind Mom, right? Well, Matt will have to take some better pictures some day and I'll post them.

That was on Friday, then we saw Mom off at the airport on Saturday morning, and headed to Vince's right outside Beverly Hills. That evening, after doing some laundry, we ate some sushi and went to a VERY expensive movie theater and watched Valentine's Day. Kind of a Los Angeles "Love Actually." Cute. We had a good time. Sunday was spent with Costco, and a trip out to find a washer and dryer. Which we did. Now all we need is a completed laundry room...

Well, my lunch is ready. I'm off to the post office after and maybe some other errands. I hope everyone has a great day.

Love,

Pam

Amirillo By Morning

Well, I have a few minutes, and thought that I would show you the few pictures of my trip so far. Day 1 was terribly exciting with 2 flat tires. But we made it through: VA, NC, SC, and into GA. We stopped in NC to see Marie and Jody (but didn't take any pics), and Danielle and her fiance. We had dinner at IHOP and paused for a couple pictures:

Then we moved on to GA, but didn't quite make it to Uncle Phil's house. We stayed in a hotel and pushed on to Cartersville on Monday morning.
Monday, after we visited, we got onto the road around noon. We got a new spare tire, and tried to make it to Little Rock Arkansas. Unfortunately, we hit a snow storm and had to stop for the night in Tennessee.
Tuesday was our most productive day. We left TN, entered AR with nice clear roads, and drove for 13 hours. That got us through AR, OK, and into TX :)
Of course, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Little Rock for lunch.

 

  

And then, when I got a little sleepy, around 2 pm, Mom drove for an hour for me. And, here's the proof: 

 So far, we've had a fun trip, and we are still getting along well. Our plan for today is to eat the free continental breakfast, get on the road by 7, drive for about 11 hours, and make it to Flagstaff, Arizona. We'll see what happens. I got excited last night when I realized that I'm only 18 hours away. If I do 11 today, then we can make it to my new house with just 7 hours of driving on Thursday. After being afraid that we wouldn't make it by Saturday, it is good to know that we made up so much time yesterday.

Well, I'll try to take more pictures. Mom and I are really bad about that. We'll be in Amarillo this morning, and all last evening I was singing that song... :)

Later,

Pam