California was awesome. After we left our cousins (see last blog), we drove to Azusa Pacific University's campus. I liked it a lot, it was great. Saturday afternoon Heath and I drove to Newport Beach. Ahhhh..... I love the beach. It is at the top of my favorite places to be. Especially when it's warm and sunny. And Newport provided that. I went running along the waterfront trail, and it was great. We wandered along the beach, too, and I took a nap in a McDonald's parking lot, while Heather did homework, cuz we didn't want to pay the parking cost.
We drove back through LA (fun stuff in a stick shift during traffic) to Riverside, got a hotel (the first time I've checked into a hotel by myself... I've done it with people in Europe, so it probably shouldn't have been a huge thing for me, but I had one of those "I feel like an adult!" moments... lol!). We totally took it easy Sunday, I went to a big church that I'd heard about, and then we ordered in pizza (it was 1 1/2 hours late, so we finally called Domino's back, and they'd gotten mixed up on our hotel, so they sent the pizza over and only charged us half price and gave us a 2-liter of pop on top of that.... we don't drink pop usually, but I had a couple swigs, and the gesture was nice!). But all that was after we'd gone to support a friend who was singing in his school's Choral Union performance. It was beautiful in this awesome cathedral-ish church.
Monday was our busy day, touring both California Baptist University and Biola. I really really really liked Cal Baptist.... I'm going to see what kind of financial aid I can get, but it's probably a top choice right now. Biola was... eh, OK. It seemed nice, but it doesn't have some of the things I'm looking for really, namely apartments to live in. And, I dunno, after CBU, it wasn't quite as neat of a fit for me, I don't think.
Then we drove out to Santa Barbara and spent the night there. I love Santa Barbara! It's beautiful! It totally reminds me of Hawaii, actually, with the folded, blanket-ish green hills and palm trees and lovely lush gardens and blue water. We didn't go to the beach or the mission or downtown, but I'm going back someday! Tuesday we toured Westmont, and I loved it also. It's gonna be a hard toss up between CBU and Westmont. Again, I'll see what kind of financial aid I can get, and that just might make my decision for me. Azusa too, since I liked it quite a bit also.
We left Santa Barbara at about 1PM, arrived in Davis by 7PM, had dinner with our long-lost cousins. Actually, nobody's been lost, we just haven't seen each other in about 8 years! Then we went back to Kelly's, and made a spur of the moment decision with Reid to have Reid come home with us. So we left just after midnight, and drove north to Redding, out to the coast (windy, hairpin turn highways with random deer and porcupine's jumping out at us and H2o pouring BUCKETS!), north along the coast, then back into to I-5 at Grant's Pass. We did stop and take an hour long napping session between 6:30 and 7:30 this morning. We made it to Portland in the early afternoon, stopped to see my Grandpa in the hospital after surgery, and to drop off the map I bought with a friend who is going to Cali tomorrow, and then we drove the rest of the way home.
It was so nice to have a 3rd driver through the night. I drove until 2:30AM, then slept until 5:30, then drove an hour, took the hour long nap break, then dozed off and on until we got to Grant's Pass. Don't tell any cops, but we'd made the back seat into a lovely little nest to curl up and sleep in, so the person in back was able to get some solid sleeping time. I finished off the last two hours home, also. Reid drove a ton, and Heather did a fair bit too. I'm exhausted now, though! I think I'm needing to head to bed asap.
I love road trips, though. Seeing new things, plotting routes, even dealing with traffic and the challenges of navigating a new city... It's fun! The only time I don't like it is when I have to be some place and I'm running behind schedule. But a lot of the time we didn't have any hugely set timelines, so we were able to just kinda do the things we wanted to do when we wanted to do them. I didn't really want to come home, partly because it's rainy and cold here in the northwest, and Santa Barbara was awfully nice! And partly because it means I have to settle down and get back to regular life... and I'm sick of regular life right now, if I can be honest! I mean, I know it is a time for me to learn to serve God in "the duldrums" of life, but
Unfortunately, I tend to get bored with things. 2 years of "normal" high school, and then I was kinda bored. 2 years plus a little more of community college, and I'm feeling kinda like I've "been there, done that." Now I'll do 2 years at a college someplace else, and maybe a semester overseas. Then I'd like to teach overseas for a year or two, then get my Master's, before I finally "settle down" someplace. But the thing that has me concerned a little is will I ever be able to settle down? I mean, kind of accidentally I've fallen into this habit of doing things for a couple years, then switching on to the next thing. Well, I can't get married for 2 years and then move on! I can't have kids for 2 years and then move on! And it probably wouldn't be so good for my employment history to only work for 2 years everywhere! Are these just the situatiosns in life right now? Or am I doing more to orchestrate this stuff than I realize? Or do I realize it and I'm just denying it? I don't know!
I have a quote on my myspace page that Percy Bysse Shelley wrote, saying something about how the more you learn, the less you know. I think that is very true! The more of an education I get, the more I feel like I don't have the foggiest about actually knowing anything!
OK, I really am tired, I have an appointment with the college I'm starting in January tomorrow, so I actually have an end limit to how late I can sleep. And, MY SISTER COMES HOME TOMORROW! I called her today, actually. I talked to a couple of her friend's before I talked to her, some of the people I'd gotten to know when I went to Colorado. They're an awesome group! I'm looking forward to making new friends at college.
Good night, folks. Peace out!
