Let's face it, the California of my youth is at least half dead. Well, it seems that way to me anyway. Although I'm quite happy to no longer live there, I'll always consider myself a So Cal boy. I don't miss the traffic, taxes, politics or smog, but I do miss the weather, the beach, palm trees, family, friends and good food. I believe I have found a way to have my cake and eat it too. About twice a year my family winds our way down the I-15 to my old stomping grounds to take in all the good things about the land that made me.
Now this blog entry is the first of several in the name of simply catching up. I haven't posted any pictures from 2019 or 2020. It's quite sad really. Lately, I find myself avoiding social media more and more as the ignorance, vitriol and screaming closed minds are more and more harder to tolerate. I've found myself sharing more photos in a family text thread than on facebook or instagram, and, to be entirely honest, I'm happier as a result. That being said, I had a friend reach out to me to let me know how much they missed my cute daughter and stories about my punk son. I then realized that this blog is not only to share with others, but has become a way for me to chronicle my life. How sad it will be to look back and not see a single bit of data for two years. So, here goes nothing...
I realize my memory is poor, so these blog entries may be more of picture sharing than memory sharing. Hopefully it will be a nice jog of my memory to see the photos and remember the good times with a bit more detail. Again, this is far more for me than the two to three people that read my blog. Nonetheless, Enjoy!
California Family Vacay 2019
I love the drive from my new home in Utah to my old home in California. I think the stretch of highway is one of the most beautiful in the world. Where some see vast wasteland, I see majestic silhouettes of mountains, unique geographic striations and memorable points of reference from my life. I often feel as if I'm traveling alone, while the other 3/4 of my family stare at their devices with or without headphones, but for the most part, I don't care. I love to look around, enjoy God's beauty and listen to my tunes on the open road.
One stop we almost always make is in St. George or Mesquite, and that is Jack In The Box. Again, a leftover from my youth and I miss it. As we stopped in to grab a Sourdough Burger at "Jack in the Crack" as I affectionally call it, we were joined by a highschool powder puff football team. They were all wearing bright pink jersey's with the number 53 and "FOR MAY" printed on them. With Mesquite being only 30 minutes or so from the home of my most favorite missionary companion, Elder Brent May, I knew there was a tie in. Brent was my Brother from another Mother and I loved him dearly. He passed away 3 February's prior. In fact, it was on our regularly scheduled February California trip that I got the news that he had finally lost his battle with cancer. I was so happy to introduce myself to the two coaches that were there with the team and explain what Brent meant to me. I get teary eyed as I think about it just as I did that night at the Jack In The Box with these two men. They gave me a jersey to keep and to remember him by and showed me where I could find his sweet wife, Amy, who was eating at a different restaurant nearby. It was such a sweet reunion with her, though I admit, I didn't know what to say. I could only imagine the loss that she felt losing him was so much greater than I could have ever felt. It was such a sweet kick off to our 2019 CA trip. You can read more about my brother, Brent, here.
We hung out at my Brother and SIL's house for a couple days, but apparently didn't get many pictures while we were there. Scott did take us to The Hat. I miss The Hat. I miss good pastrami sandwiches period. In my 24 years of living in Utah, I have never once found a pastrami sandwich that even remotely comes close to the average Californian pastrami sandwich, and The Hat serves one of the best! Scott even bought me a t-shirt for my birthday so that he could rub it in every time I wear it. It's like I can hear him saying, "We have The Hat and you don't! Neener, neener, neener!"
We would have stayed with my family a little longer, but the kids had school the next day so we thanked them for their hospitality and checked into The Great Wolf Lodge. My family loves this place. We checked in and quickly set off to explore the resort and then had dinner at the restaurant that was my family's favorite when I was a kid, Cris N Pitt's. Yummy! After filling our bellies we headed back to the resort with wolf ears on our heads for a late night pajama dance party, where Leah danced and Dax anticipated the next day filled with water slides and splash pads and waves.
The following day, after a long day at the sparsely populated water park (those pics must be on another camera roll), we cleaned up and had dinner at The Crack Shack. It's a fun restaurant with a huge obsession with the chicken.
After a good nights sleep and a thorough wash off of the chlorine from Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark, we grabbed an Uber and headed to....DISNEYLAND!!! My favorite part of Disneyland is visiting with my good friend, Jeff, that works there at the park. I only get to see him once or twice a year, so I cherish those times. After visiting with him for a few minutes we stepped onto Main Street and into the Happiest Place on Earth. For 3 days we rode rides, we people watched, we ate good food, we saw shows and we even ran into our good friends, Scott and Liz!
After a couple days at the water park and a few more days at Disneyland, we headed back to Scott and Cynthia's house where we had the most fun of the whole trip. I'm not exactly sure what we did for 2-3 days, but I'm pretty certain the kids played while the adults talked, we swam a bit, ate some good homemade food, swam some more, more than likely ate at Star Wok at least once and had a killer nerf gun war between all of us. We finished the trip off with a nice steak dinner and headed home. We were tuckered out. I was dead tired and the kids were sad to leave their cousins because they love them, but probably mostly because they knew they had to go back to school when we got home. Of course, we first made a stop at the world's largest gas station. :)
Thanks for the memories, California. You keep on giving them.
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