California Surprise

I have two of the most amazing best friends in the world that like to travel- ALOT. I dream of going on trips to Europe with them, but I have to save that for later in life. Right now I need to take care of my family, but when the opportunity came up for a surprise trip to California I jumped at the chance!

Karen was planning on taking Diane to Hollywood to see Shrek the Musical for her birthday. 

She asked me if I wanted to go, but I declined saying Brandon had to work. Honestly, I didn't check his schedule, but I knew it just wouldn't work out. A few days later she asked me again and I told her to look at my calendar and it would show I couldn't go. So, I pulled up the calendar and VOILA, Brandon had the whole weekend off. There goes my excuse and then the wheels started churning. We decided that we would keep it a secret from Diane and surprise her on the morning we were leaving.

The anticipation of surprising her almost killed us, but finally the departure day arrived. We pulled over around the corner from Diane's house and I climbed in the trunk. Karen had made it nice and comfy for me, so it wasn't too bad. My claustrophobia started kicking in when Diane opened the trunk and I almost gave her a heart attack!

We listened to The Help while we drove and quickly became enthralled with it. We stayed in Augora Hills at a beautiful hotel in the mountains of Malibu. The night we got there we had an amazing dinner at Gladstones on Malibu Beach. We were hoping we would see Matthew McConaughey running on the beach, but we weren't lucky enough. The waiter asked us if we wanted some drinks and Karen joked with him that we didn't know what that was since we were from Utah. He chuckled and said he had been down South to Louisiana too. Whew- I think that waiter needs to go back to 4th grade! When we left Karen tipped the valet station with all the $1's we had, so she was a little embarrassed when we didn't have cash to give the kid a tip. He said he noticed we had candy, so we tipped him with Mike & Ike's! He was happy and we were too!

Before- Dry & Warm

After- Wet, salty, and cold

The next day we headed out for a whale watching cruise in Long Beach. Karen was so excited to see Blue Whales, which are the largest. We went out on a big boat with tiered seats. The captain took us to the "sweet spot" where they had seen 3 whales on the tour right before ours. We sat there for a while, but didn't see any. The swells were getting pretty high, so the boat was going up and down like a roller coaster. Everyone was screaming and laughing.... until, baaaarfff! A guy puked on the stairs right next to me. I have a really hard time not getting sick if there is puke anywhere around me or if I hear it, so I thought I was a gonner. We tried to distract ourselfs to drown out the sound of the heaving man and it worked! By the end of the cruise there were probably 5 people puking all around us. They didn't even try to do it over the rail, they were just puking in their seats. It was really nasty! Anyway, we didn't see any whales, but we did see a seal and a few dolphins, which was really neat. The best part of the trip was driving back to port with the water spraying in our faces. We were the only ones that stayed above deck. We figured we were already wet, so it couldn't get any worse! We had 1 hour to get from Long Beach to the theater in Hollywood on a Saturday night. We ended up changing and doing our makeup in the car on the freeway. I was wiping salt off my face and out of my ears.

We got to the theater with 5 minutes to spare thanks to Karen's Mario Andretti skills and the GPS! We quickly found our seats and the show started. The music in it was really good. Karen and Diane had tickets on the 5th row in the middle, but had an empty seat next to them at the intermission, so I got to sit with them for the second half of the play. We looked down the aisle and noticed a familiar face. It took us until the end of the play to figure out who it was. I used to watch Ben Vereen every Saturday morning on Zubilee Zoo. He is an amazing actor and dancer. Karen was the only one with enough confidence to go up to him. He shook her hand and called her his "Queen"! A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!! The last time I went to the Pantages I saw Zsa Zsa Gabor, but that wasn't as great as this!

Our adventure ended just as quickly as it began and we headed home. It took a few hours longer because of a huge traffic jam between California and Vegas. We finally made it home and finished our book! We decided we are going to be the Golden Girls when we get old. I can't think of anything better than sharing my golden years with these wonderful girls!