On the Great Adventure, Final Day

or,

Sipping red wine, Driving winding roads, and trying not to bit each others heads off.

Well, I made it folks, as many of you already know (don’t tell the DMV, I haven’t gotten a new driver’s license yet) and it was quite an ordeal. So far the most regularly asked question I have answered is, “How was the trip?”, further evidence that no one is reading my drivel. However, it’s helpful to me to write it all down, so here’s The Final Day.

The Final Day of The Great Adventure was, without question, the best day. Carla and I woke up at our hotel in L.A. on Sunday morning, beaming and happy. After long absences, the heart is not the only thing that grows fonder, I am here to tell ya. There is something physically wonderful about waking up in the morning next to the person you know you are supposed to be with. When they are away, you wake up wondering blearily where they ARE every morning, a situation that is utterly unlivable after a while, as Carla and I have both proven and now rectified.

Our hotel, by the way, was called “The Farmer’s Daughter.” All I could think about where all those raunchy jokes I knew as a kid … hehehe … this was all together another great reason to have my long absent girlfriend around, but I digress …

We had ourselves a great breakfast at their little restaurant and hit the road. In the beginning I was loathe to get into the driver’s seat again, after the previous day’s grueling difficulties, but I was so overjoyed to have someone to ride with and talk to that it didn’t phase me too much. Carla and I headed north out of L.A. towards Santa Barbara, where we were meeting an old friend of hers for lunch.

It turns out it’s a good thing we did. Santa Barbara, for the uninitiated, is kind of in the middle of nowhere. Granted, it’s the middle of nowhere, CALIFORNIA, so it’s pretty nice. It is, in fact, a quaintly beautiful little town where we had a lovely lunch and a nice walk with Carla’s long lost amigo, who is pursuing a branch of religious study so fascinating and worldly that I could not begin to do it justice here. Suffice it to say it was great to have engaging intellectual conversation after so many days alone on the road.

After lunch, we decided to continue up the coast along the legendary Route 1, that long and winding road up and down the Pacific coast. We took turns driving, and stopped in Big Sur. We had a nice meal, a glass of red wine, and sat looking at the coastal sunset, in as beautiful (and typically) Northern Californian setting as you could possibly get. The grandeur of my new state was really beginning to set in, and it was lovely to be there with Carla.

We finished off the trip after dinner, and the last bit was a bit rough. We rolled into SF about 11pm, tired and ready for bed. Sadly, we had a car load of my CRAP to unload, and we set to it as quickly as possible. We were exhausted, and very near to snapping at each other at this point. In retrospect, I can only say that it was a testament to our feeling and commitment to each other that we got the car unloaded without killing each other, as tempers were frayed to the edge. We got a good night’s sleep, together in our home at last, and woke up the next morning with that same beaming feeling of happiness to be together at last. The best part is, it’s been almost two weeks since that day, and it hasn’t gone away yet. Hopefully it never will.

(Wow, that final bit, the last sentence especially, almost had ME losing my lunch. Fell free to be disgusted by our happiness. We sometimes gross ourselves out, and then laugh and laugh.)