I don’t want to go home!

I have a BIG pout on. I seriously love this place so much. I don’t know why I feel such a connection to it – maybe because it’s so beautiful with the mountains and the ocean and the flowers and the palm trees. Or because I’m always on vacation when I’m here and can leave all the stress and problems of real life at home.

It’s so nice that they celebrated our last day with fireworks – oh, okay, it’s because it’s the Fourth of July. Awesome fireworks on the beach. I've never seen Cabrillo like that! I specially love the ones that look like palm trees. We went to the parade on State Street this afternoon and checked out some of the things going on at the beach – the usual Sunday Arts and Crafts show was on today, and we drank huge pina coladas out of pineapples. Only problem was getting dinner – our favourite pizza restaurant was closed – DAMMIT! We ended up eating hot dogs and curly fries at the beach.

Between the edits on How to Save a Life and this trip, we’ve learned to speak American:
Trash not garbage
Check not bill (In a restaurant)
Soda not pop
Restroom or bathroom not washroom

Napkin not serviette
And many people, when you say thank you, instead of saying “you’re welcome” say “uh-huh”.

I have to remind myself of the good things about going home – sleeping on our own bed, cooking our own food, seeing our dog who we’ve missed so much especially every time we see a dog here. But I know we’ll be back...some day. Hopefully not too far away...

I've lost track. Back to Santa Barbara (that's our hotel above). Had a lazier day around the pool, walked on the beach after dinner. This city is filling up - compared to Monday and Tuesday which were quiet, we had a hard time finding parking this evening. The holiday weekend is heating up. I've never been in the US for the Fourth of July so this will be interesting...

Greyound Summer by Nara Malone is keeping me reading as things heat up for Arie. Good thing I brought my laptop on my holiday!

I finished Strong Silent Type and went right on to Branded as Trouble, both by Lorelei James. Branded as Trouble had a couple both with interesting pasts. I really liked the way they understand each other's struggles.

Now I'm reading Bound by Love by TA Chase...

Will post more later about Vacation Day 5....

10:15 PM
This day was like a dream. I know it would be a better story if everything went wrong, but it was so good. So perfect.

This trip was to be our 25th anniversary celebration. Our kids insisted on coming with us (they're teenagers, 16 and 19) and even though we wanted this to be our trip, we let them come because, hey, we actually like our kids, and strangely enough, our kids like us. I don't know how many teenagers like to spend time with their parents, but ours do and we feel lucky - although sometimes we say "could we just have a couple of hours alone???" Well, today we got it - we left Santa Barbara around noon - left the kids there on their own. We drove through San Marcos pass, through ear-popping ups and downs, into the valley. We passed areas that were burnt during the recent fires. We drove through golden hills, dotted with curly green trees, and spotted at least three eagles soaring above.

We first went to a winery near Santa Ynez, so beautiful, (pix tomorrow - my official photog didn't bring his laptop to convert from raw to JPEG). Then we checked into our stunning boutique hotel in Solvang - French country furniture, dark walls, a fireplace - and the bed was very nice, too. :-) We wandered around town, bought a few Christmas ornaments ( we collect those from everywhere we travel), bought strawberries at the farmers market, then went back to the hotel for dinner.

Included in our hotel package was dinner and it was fabulous - and we got a free bottle of wine! So nice. After dinner we put on our robes from the room and went down to the hot tub. Met a nice couple whose kids were too young to leave alone, but they were getting pretty frisky in the hot tub anyway and ...well, it was hard not to, also. Two fireplaces lit up the hot tub area, so nice, and we had the lovely wine we'd bought earlier, with nice stemless wine glasses from the room.

I'd had an idea for a story kicking around in my head, but I've found I need to combine ideas - and today I got another idea, so I combined the two while I was floating in the hot tub - yes! Great story beginning...I haven't written at all while on this trip, but I'm still thinking about it....

Calgary 9:15 am - sitting in the airport with 3 more hours until our connecting flight to LA. Blogger is giving me problems with the wireless internet here. I have edits to work on for How to Save a Life...may have to do that.

Los Angeles - 10:30 pm
When we went to claim our baggage and go through customs in Calgary, my suitcase was nowhere to be found. AAAH! Everyone else's was there. We checked with the airline and they said I'd just have to go on to LA without it. Not too happy. But...when we got to LA and claimed our baggage - there it was! I think someone else must have taken it by mistake and checked it through. It was tagged through to LA so it made it. Whew!

Got to the hotel around 6:00, checked in went for dinner at the Promenade in Santa Monica. Did a little shopping, watched some street performers, then we were going to go out on the Pier but we were all too tired - up at 4:30 am and it was 11:00 our time. We may go by there in the morning...