Home, Safe & Sound

So glad to be home! I really love going out to California and seeing my family, but the drive is a grind and long. We got home on Friday around 8:30 PM local time -- just in time for a huge thunderstorm to hit. We unpacked and vegged out for a bit before going to bed. On Saturday, it was all about laundry, getting groceries, running errands, going through 2 weeks worth of mail, paying bills. On Sunday, we eased into the morning. I took a yoga class -- my first in awhile -- and then we went to see Wall-E.

I've gotten back into the swing of things at work pretty quickly. It's tough getting back on schedule, plus the whole wearing clothes thing is a pain, after several weeks of wearing nothing but shorts, flip flops and tank tops. Now, I'm back in bras, skirts and high heels....

The drive back was uneventful -- exactly what we want on a 2000+ mile drive. The first day was 18 hours and the second day was close to 13 hours. Anyone could get cranky in those conditions, and both Don and I had our moments. For the most part, we enjoy each other's company, and we find a lot to talk about and even enjoy the silence. The dogs did great, even in the hotels. We have a routine with our stops -- Don gets the dogs out for a walk, I go in for a potty break, I come out and load up the dogs and start to gas up while Don has a potty break and we're back on the road within 15 minutes. What made this trip easier than the two before is that the CRV has a mileage range showing how many more miles we have before we run out of gas. In the end, we made fewer stops saving us time.

It's still a tough trip, especially because we want to do each overnight on the other side of the Rockies -- Grand Junction on the way west and Denver on the way east. There is nothing like ending an 18-hour day winding through pitch black mountain roads.

I do have to say we live in a very beautiful country. Even the flat, green, plains of Iowa and Nebraska are wonderful, although little holds a candle to the Rockies and the desert mountains of Utah. Of course, there is the south Pacific coast of California. We took the coast road between Santa Barbara and West Hollywood, down Highway 1. My favorite place will always be Santa Barbara -- the coast, the mountains...

We had a lovely dinner at the Wine Cask, the restaurant that catered our wedding 9 years ago. Since we went on a Tuesday evening, we were the only ones out on the patio for almost the entire meal. I got to eat a lot of good Mexican food (like, 5 times!) and realize how much I miss it. We also stopped at In-N-Out Burger in Las Vegas on the was home for lunch. Yum!

Now it's all about getting into a schedule here. I feel like if I can get back to "normal" this week, I'll have the weekend to recover and then be ready to take on the world next Monday!