Our California Adventure

Ha! I finally got this thing posted!

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A week ago Friday my cousin Ally received her Master's in Marital and Family Therapy. At least that's what they tell me. The Hubs was working, so we couldn't make the ceremony, but we still wanted to congratulate her in person.

So last Saturday we hit the road.

From Phoenix to Ally's home in Orange County, it's about a 7-hour drive including stops (several) and getting lost (several times).

The drive was actually very nice – there were desert ironwood trees in bloom along the roadside and a dramatic overcast sky. (Remember, rainy/cloudy is good if you’re from Arizona.)

Of course, we passed all the California road trip landmarks I remember seeing on various family vacations growing up. There's the Colorado River,

the miles of windmills (Wind turbines? Giants? What are those things really?),

and the dinosaurs invading the city. (Maybe it's the other way around. I think they were there first.)

We also discovered a new California road trip landmark.

That one is not so cute.

We finally made it to where Ally lives, which somehow reminded me of Disneyland. Only the animals don’t sing.

A few highlights:

• squeezing our crowd into an already crowded restaurant and pouncing on the first available seating (FYI, that's Ally on the left and her roomie, Kelli, Kacie, on the right.) (Sorry about that! I need to quit blogging tired!)
  

• walking in the park with the Hubs and my Uncle John (and some rabbits)

• learning to throw change into the toll booth thing - without even stopping the car

• going on a quest for guinea pig food

• reconnecting over coffee
  

And as fun as all that was, it's good to be back.

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P.S. Most of the photos are by me. The Hubs took the gas pump one...and the ones with me in them.