Dave is 31 today!!! We plan to celebrate in style with breakfast at a diner before heading off to work.
It's also been a year now since I started at the Hartford Courant. Man, time flies when you move twice and get married in one year!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Closing the Book
Liz may wind up writing a little something of her own to cap our vacation journal, but here's my stab at summarizing a few of the details we've missed.
First of all, we made it back safely to Newark, somehow caught our connections into the city and now are heading home on the Metro-North train to New Haven with an ETA of 4 a.m. Not too tired but getting there. Mostly looking forward to the end of travel, after a six-hour car drive, five-hour flight and now a few hours on trains.
As Liz mentioned in her last post, we visited USC on Thursday, the first time I had been back to the campus since my roommate Hanvey and I sealed the final box of our stuff in May 1998 and pointed his rickety minivan in the direction of the Northeast. The campus hadn't changed much in a decade, though I don't know if I'd notice if it had. I still remembered the key landmarks and had a few boring stories to tell Liz at each of our stops, but the place doesn't really have much emotional resonance anymore. Even so, I bought an SC baseball hat and am wearing it now. Go Trojans!
Some
of our most pleasant moments on the trip were spent on beaches, starting with the beach at Carlsbad, where my Aunt Liz works. No alcohol allowed on this beach, she says, so we tried to act sober. Ha... just kidding.
And of course, we had a wild time on the beach in Santa Monica, first walking down the boardwalk and stopping by the Mexican restaurant
at the end of the pier. Liz suggested ordering the big margaritas, and by big, I mean the biggest you've ever seen. They were also the best I've ever tasted, and they cost the most money I've ever spent on a single drink ($22 a piece!!!). After dark, we followed up dinner with a walk along the beach, running in and out of the surf.
We also had a good time visiting Ginger and Gerard, who had opened their home to me in college when I needed to get away from
Los Angeles and school for a weekend. They're good people, and they took us to their local Fourth of July parade, which was more fun than you'd expect from a small-town parade like that. They live in Arcadia, Calif., in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My cousin Louellen, who lives about a half hour away, stopped by to say hello and have dinner with us last night.
There's plenty more I could write about, and certainly plenty more photos I could attach — we took a few hundred and will eventually post them in a Picasa gallery — but I'll leave it at that for now, with one last detail. My grandparents are buried in a Mojave desert city called Victorville, not far from where
they lived, in Phelan. I wasn't able to get to their funerals several years ago, so I wanted to stop by on this trip and visit their graves, even though the cemetery is about an hour away from Arcadia. We drove up after the parade Friday, and because of the holiday the cemetery office was closed. So we didn't have any help in finding the graves, but after strolling the rows for maybe 20 minutes I finally came across the memorial stone. I didn't know my dad's parents as well as I'd have liked, since they lived far away away for most of my life, but it meant a lot to finally be able to say goodbye in person.
First of all, we made it back safely to Newark, somehow caught our connections into the city and now are heading home on the Metro-North train to New Haven with an ETA of 4 a.m. Not too tired but getting there. Mostly looking forward to the end of travel, after a six-hour car drive, five-hour flight and now a few hours on trains.
As Liz mentioned in her last post, we visited USC on Thursday, the first time I had been back to the campus since my roommate Hanvey and I sealed the final box of our stuff in May 1998 and pointed his rickety minivan in the direction of the Northeast. The campus hadn't changed much in a decade, though I don't know if I'd notice if it had. I still remembered the key landmarks and had a few boring stories to tell Liz at each of our stops, but the place doesn't really have much emotional resonance anymore. Even so, I bought an SC baseball hat and am wearing it now. Go Trojans!
Some
of our most pleasant moments on the trip were spent on beaches, starting with the beach at Carlsbad, where my Aunt Liz works. No alcohol allowed on this beach, she says, so we tried to act sober. Ha... just kidding.And of course, we had a wild time on the beach in Santa Monica, first walking down the boardwalk and stopping by the Mexican restaurant
at the end of the pier. Liz suggested ordering the big margaritas, and by big, I mean the biggest you've ever seen. They were also the best I've ever tasted, and they cost the most money I've ever spent on a single drink ($22 a piece!!!). After dark, we followed up dinner with a walk along the beach, running in and out of the surf.
We also had a good time visiting Ginger and Gerard, who had opened their home to me in college when I needed to get away from
Los Angeles and school for a weekend. They're good people, and they took us to their local Fourth of July parade, which was more fun than you'd expect from a small-town parade like that. They live in Arcadia, Calif., in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. My cousin Louellen, who lives about a half hour away, stopped by to say hello and have dinner with us last night.There's plenty more I could write about, and certainly plenty more photos I could attach — we took a few hundred and will eventually post them in a Picasa gallery — but I'll leave it at that for now, with one last detail. My grandparents are buried in a Mojave desert city called Victorville, not far from where
they lived, in Phelan. I wasn't able to get to their funerals several years ago, so I wanted to stop by on this trip and visit their graves, even though the cemetery is about an hour away from Arcadia. We drove up after the parade Friday, and because of the holiday the cemetery office was closed. So we didn't have any help in finding the graves, but after strolling the rows for maybe 20 minutes I finally came across the memorial stone. I didn't know my dad's parents as well as I'd have liked, since they lived far away away for most of my life, but it meant a lot to finally be able to say goodbye in person.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Vacation Coming to an End
Here we are, at the Phoenix airport. Boarding is expected to begin any minute now. So sad to see the vacation dwindling, but so happy that we did everything we set out to do. Will go into the details after we land, sometime around midnight on the East Coast. Newark here we come.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Aunt Sabra
I had the pleasure of visiting my great aunt Sabra on Wednesday as Dave and I made the trek from Vista up to Santa Monica. Sabra Fox is my Grandma Putnam's sister who lives in Fullerton. The last time I saw her was when my grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary when I was in high school.
Sabra has six children. I only remember her youngest, Theresa, be
cause she is only four years older than I am. They visited us in Wisconsin at least once one summer when Nate and I were in elementary school.
We chatted with her and her oldest daughter, Leanne, for nearly three hours, catching up on who is doing what. I also got to see pictures of my great-grandmother that I'd never seen.
We are now in Arcadia, which is near Pasadena, visiting Dave's Aunt Ginger and Uncle Gerard, who are Dave's godparents. We drove north after visiting the great USC, Dave's alma mater. I'll let him blog on that.....
Sabra has six children. I only remember her youngest, Theresa, be
cause she is only four years older than I am. They visited us in Wisconsin at least once one summer when Nate and I were in elementary school.We chatted with her and her oldest daughter, Leanne, for nearly three hours, catching up on who is doing what. I also got to see pictures of my great-grandmother that I'd never seen.
We are now in Arcadia, which is near Pasadena, visiting Dave's Aunt Ginger and Uncle Gerard, who are Dave's godparents. We drove north after visiting the great USC, Dave's alma mater. I'll let him blog on that.....
Thursday, July 3, 2008
California Dreaming
Egads! We haven't blogged since arriving in California. I guess that old laid-back SoCal spirit has seeped into our souls. Whoa, dude!
No surfing yet, though I am typing this from a hotel room with a view of the surf next to the Santa Monica pier — or the end of the world, as I affectionately like to call it. I went to college a half hour east on I-10 and even worked here in Santa Monica during my last semester in California, at the Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade. Coming back here I realize how little I appreciated how good I had it. Or rather, how good I could have had it if I wasn't working a $6-an-hour job, catching a bus home at 11 p.m. and wasting all my spare time studying for classes.
Returning to stroll the boardwalk and the beach and sip giant margaritas with Liz is a much better approach to Los Angeles living.
But more on all that to come. I must first get in a mention of our trip to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego. My aunt and uncle and cousin and cousin-in-law were extremely gracious in putting us up for the night, taking us to what must be the best steakhouse in Southern California, showing us the local beach, showing us their pet rattlesnake (gasp! We decided not to tell about the rattlesnake we ate a day earlier.) and filling us in on the old Paulsen gossip. Now that we have picture-posting capabilities (go back and see the old blog entries updated) here's a picture with, from left, Aunt Liz, Victor, Liz, Uncle Richard and Estay. And yes, that's wine in Liz's hand.
No surfing yet, though I am typing this from a hotel room with a view of the surf next to the Santa Monica pier — or the end of the world, as I affectionately like to call it. I went to college a half hour east on I-10 and even worked here in Santa Monica during my last semester in California, at the Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade. Coming back here I realize how little I appreciated how good I had it. Or rather, how good I could have had it if I wasn't working a $6-an-hour job, catching a bus home at 11 p.m. and wasting all my spare time studying for classes.
Returning to stroll the boardwalk and the beach and sip giant margaritas with Liz is a much better approach to Los Angeles living.
But more on all that to come. I must first get in a mention of our trip to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego. My aunt and uncle and cousin and cousin-in-law were extremely gracious in putting us up for the night, taking us to what must be the best steakhouse in Southern California, showing us the local beach, showing us their pet rattlesnake (gasp! We decided not to tell about the rattlesnake we ate a day earlier.) and filling us in on the old Paulsen gossip. Now that we have picture-posting capabilities (go back and see the old blog entries updated) here's a picture with, from left, Aunt Liz, Victor, Liz, Uncle Richard and Estay. And yes, that's wine in Liz's hand.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
And Then There Was That Rattlesnake
We didn't see one - we ate one. After a day 
of taking in the views of the Grand Canyon --perhaps the most spectacular sight I've ever seen -- we headed out of the park, looking for some grub. And nothing says grub like Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, 
where our waitress sported a beer belly and every entree came with a bowl of beans. Without hesitation, Dave decided we needed to try the fried rattlesnake appetizer. And without hesitation, we ate it. It was good. It tasted like a chewy calamari.
We are now on our way to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego, to see Dave's Aunt Liz and Uncle Richard.
of taking in the views of the Grand Canyon --perhaps the most spectacular sight I've ever seen -- we headed out of the park, looking for some grub. And nothing says grub like Yippee-Ei-O! Steakhouse, 
where our waitress sported a beer belly and every entree came with a bowl of beans. Without hesitation, Dave decided we needed to try the fried rattlesnake appetizer. And without hesitation, we ate it. It was good. It tasted like a chewy calamari.We are now on our way to Vista, Calif., just north of San Diego, to see Dave's Aunt Liz and Uncle Richard.
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