Life in the Cheese Drawer

today was a travel day. our pickup shuttle actually turned out to be a car, which was nice because a) we only had to pick up one other person and b) between the other person and the driver, it was kind of a riot hearing what they had to say. it was like a guided comedy tour. 
got to the airport 🙁
got through TSA 🙁
got to our gate 🙁
had a couple EXCELLENT drinks 🙂
boarded the plane 🙁
flew back to land of ice and snow 🙁 (except not yet. it’s only 50º here, so it isn’t TOO bad…but when you prefer 80º, i guess it’s not great)
the HHH terminal was pretty low-key when we flew in, definitely low-key compared to LAX. by the time we got to our baggage claim, our luggage was already on the conveyer and was one of 5 left to pick up. hitched a ride on the shuttle to our parked car and felt like i had miles and miles of space in our traffic lanes. unbelievable.
and the closer i got to home, the more relaxed and happy i felt. i had FUN in CA. i would love to go there again, and i probably will. i love to go places and to travel, but i think i love coming home even more. 
i leave you with this michael perry quote, quite possibly my favorite from him:

I am happy here, but my gravitation to place has always been balanced by my need to move. I crave a contrapuntal mix of shiftlessness and stability. In bed at night, I can hear the trucks out on the highway. Sometimes a driver drifts across the white line, and when the tires hit the rumble strip, the rubbery howl makes me want to drive away in the night, fills me with the urge to go west, makes me think the finest sort of freedom is found at sunrise in a South Dakota rest stop. Contentment, it turns out, can be a matter of global positioning.

this morning, jane and i had no idea what we were going to do, so we decided to go to universal city to see what was there and visit the harry potter section of the gift shop again (because, why not, right?).
after taking a quick tour and then eating a crepe, we decided to check out the starline hop on hop off busses that did tours of hollywood, santa monica, and venice beach. and right then jane made the decision that we’d go! so on to the bus we went without our sunscreen, water bottles, or dramamine (no worries; i picked some up at a CVS down the street from the chinese theatre. 
the first drop was at the hollywood walk of fame, chinese theatre, and the madam toussand’s wax museum. we walked up the sidewalk to see if we could find the stars of people we cared about. took some pics of the dolby theatre where the academy awards are held, and saw the chinese theatre. 
AND GOT FOOD AT A TACO TRUCK!!! woohoo!!! it wasn’t a GREAT taco truck, but at least it was a taco truck. ate around the corner in a slightly sketchy sidewalk bumpout, but at least it was shady. 
lots of people wanting us to take their CDs, handouts, tour bus info, and people dressed up as movie characters (and the village people – one of whom was wearing very short shorts and furry boots). 
some items of note: puritan roots are not very deep here. lots of adult shops, lots of head shops, lots of debauchery (i like it; just a departure from average minnesotan fare). 
then we hopped on the bus again and took a bus tour of hollywood – melrose ave, beverly hills, saw the hollywood sign, etc. it was fun once i got the dramamine in me because we sat on the roof of the bus and took in the sun. (the sun doens’t seem very strong here this time of year, but it sure is bright and hot). tried to stop at tower records so i could get something for nate, but it was closed (for good). 
got back to universal city where we checked out the comic book store that’d been closed earlier and had supper at hard rock cafe, along with a drink. then took the shuttle back to the hotel, where we now sit! drinking a fuzzy navel and considering sticking my feet in the pool.

here’s a picture preview of today’s happenings. it’s 11 p.m. here, 1 a.m. my time, and we just got back from driving all day, so i’m beat. tomorrow morning i’ll try to edit my written account!
EDIT:
after waking up again at 6 a.m., we decided to call hertz to see if we could get our car rental early – YES. hertz is only 3/4 of a mile from the hotel, so jane and i hoofed it over there. TRAFFIC EVERYWHERE. 
we walked past a super-long election line, which is really disconcerting. then we walked along a less busy side street that both of us decided we wouldn’t walk during the dark, saw a lemon tree that i wanted to raid, and then smelled some marijuana on the other side of a tall yard fence-like thingy (we wanted to join). 
got to hertz for our mustang convertible! took off and navigated LA traffic (surprisingly like st cloud traffic in town except for narrower lanes). (freeway traffic is much nicer than cities traffic – longer following distances, but narrower lanes.)
we went over a mountain, and then entered the land of haze. i felt like i should’ve been entering a post-apocalyptic movie set or something. it was the bottom of the san joaquin valley, so there were a lot of orange groves, some very large solar panel farms, maybe olives, and a whole bunch of FLAT, HAZY land. we think there were some pretty mountains in the distance, but we could barely see past our noses. 
we started climbing out of haze-land and into the sierra nevada. stopped at a dam to check out the water levels (not good). then headed to sequoia for a 4-hr jaunt up over and down a mountain. 
up the mountain was pretty boring – not a lot goin on besides some mountain-esque scenery. we were there for the big trees! shrubbery just wasn’t doing much for us. lots of switchbacks and slow driving on the way up, and it was pretty warm. we DID lower our car top down after entering the park, so we got to have some convertible fun! 
then suddenly, TREES!!! sequoias only thrive in a certain elevation level, moisture, and temperature, and that western slope of the sierra nevada is the only place in the world that hosts the big trees. 
it was great – we were driving, and suddenly i felt like i was in the black hills (with more slope-y-ness) because it SMELLED like the hills – the great pine smell you get from sitting amidst many tall pines. the temp also dropped about 20º, so we stopped and pulled out our sweatshirts. 
and the trees were HUUUUGE. like incomprehensible huge. it took the entire frame of my wide-angle to get a shot.
we stopped at the big forest museum, which used to be a market, gas station, hotel, etc., but they are doing all they can to return the forest to the trees. they’re also working on doing prescribed burns after a century of suppressing forest fires (NOT GOOD, as we’ve seen in the black hills) we learned a lot about the trees, got to take a short walk and some pics with trees. 
then we drove on to see general sherman, the largest tree by volume in the world. ginormous! jane thought this was the tree you could drive through, but that’s a redwood way up the coast that we won’t be seeing. but, we walked down a hill to see the giant tree, then took some pics, and hauled our butts up the hill (ugh, quite a haul, too). 
slowly descended down the mountain just as the sun was setting, so we got some stellar mountainous sunset pics. finally got too cold for the top to be down, so it was up with the convertible top. we left the park at a more northerly location, so our drive back was a different route through the land of haze.
and good grief, did it stink. i’m not sure if it was biowaste or we were driving through some livestock land, but gag city. wow. still felt (and now smelled) like a post-apocolyptic movie come to life. 
stopped at in-n-out (not impressed), and three hours later made our way back to our hotel.
PASSED OUT. wow. what a day!