A Vacation

A short report on our "vacation" last week.

We are located in the Central Valley of California. And we went to LA for a clown seminar (yes, i know, kinda wierd, but when you're married to a clown, what's a girl to do??? lol) We left Wed. am, since the seminar started at 4. The traffic was so bad that it took us Forever to get there! It Should be a 5 hr drive, and it was and 8 hour drive (we did stop in Bakersfield for gas and eats).

We had a wonderful time at the seminar--made lots of contacts and bought too much stuff! But since we had budgeted for the purchases, it was no big deal. Got to bed way to late! lol. Thursday we drove down to Newport Beach for a tour of the new Temple there. Took us 2 3/4 hours to go 45 miles! Coming back to LAX wasn't so bad--only 1 1/2 hours! By this time we were well aware of the hazmat spill on Interstate 5--which is virtually the only way home from LA for us. They expected it to open about 3, so we dinged around LA till 3:30, and decided it was time to get out of town. I-5 was still closed, so we started going towards it anyway. Well, it didn't much matter. Every "freeway" in LA was at a standstill! I called my brother who is a long-haul trucker to see if he could give us an escape route. Every one he suggested, the radio said was at a standstill! Finally, the 3 of us (dh, me and my brother, who was driving along Nevada or Texas or somewhere!) decided
the best route for us us up the coast. Which, bytheway, adds about 5 hours to the drive. Because I have a decent sense of direction, and we had AAA maps, we chose surface streets. Good thing, too. We went much faster than the freeways! 405 to the coast was just not moving! 101 up the coast was not moving! We finally rolled into San Luis Obispo about 9:30 pm. Fell into the motel bed utterly exhausted! Up and on the road to Fresno early enough on Friday to be at work by noon. I dropped dh off at the apt so he could get his car and go on to work as well. Friday nite we cheated and went to the movies. Soon I was fast asleep in my own bed! You know, it wouldn't have been so grueling if I hadn't done most of the driving. On Saturdays, we do parties, grand openings, etc. Gratefully, we had just one birthday party--but that one was monsterous. The worst party we have ever had! The kids were polite, but ungrateful, and could not be pleased. Because I was so upset over this, I hardly slept Sat nite. Even when dh had great things to say about my work, I like to see the kids smile when I'm through with them. :-( So Sunday I had a headache. I took a nap, and slept right through our Home Teaching appointment!

....Should have thought about taking pictures of the traffic,but just didn't! lol