This year we decided to head south for Thanksgiving. We left after work on Tuesday for Laura (La) and Lucinda's (Lu), Beth's sister and girlfriend, house in Sierra Madre. We had not been in the LA area for quite a while and we were excited. That night we found a public campground and got the Subie converted for the night.
We slept to a light rain and woke early. By 7AM we were in the Great Valley heading south on the 5. We first went to La's school (she is a teacher at a Community College). We got the tour of the school and then headed to lunch. It didn't take long to get one of the things we miss most about urban living: a variety of restaurants. We had a great lunch and went to a cool bakery that sold baklava in a ton of varieties.
We left La to finish her day and headed to REI to wander through the store as Lu still needed to finish her work day too. Not long after, we headed to their house where Diego got to meet his cousins!
Tikka
On Thanksgiving, we headed to Lu's father's house (which is really close to La-n-Lu's house). It was to be the first large family Thanksgiving in a long time. La and Lu kicked ass on a huge meal.
The day after Thanksgiving, we went to hang out with Seta (Beth's good friend), her girlfriend Tricia, and Lyndy (Beth's other good friend). Seta lives in Long Beach. Long Beach is cool. We had a good Vietnamese meal and then headed to the beach.
Left to Right: La, Lu, Tricia, Seta, Lyndy, Beth, Travis
After crossing the vast LA area, we ended back at La-n-Lu's.
Our final day in LA was spent playing frisbee with Diego and going out the Pub for beer.
On Sunday Beth and I piled into the car at 7AM. We listened to This American Life as we went up through the Grapevine, north in the valley, skirted the Bay area, cruised through Napa and Calistoga, and finally back in Humboldt County at 7PM.
It was too bad that we didn't have more time to hang out, but long weekends are short. Thanks LA crew for hanging out with us. We had a blast.
-BnT
