Not A Vacation

I think many people think that when we go to the National Association of FWB or a music conference (like last week) that is it a nice little vacation for us. However, it's nice to get away from the normal routine, but it's NOT a vacation! The schedule usually starts around 8:00 a.m. with a short break for lunch and supper and ends around 9:00 p.m. that night. It was very tiring especially since we had to adjust to Pacific Time (which was 3 hours behind our normal time.) Jeremy said that he has never seen me fall asleep so fast at night. :-) The conference ended on Thursday around lunch. So we rented a car to view some of the sites of L.A. Knowing that our budget was extremely tight, we tried to look for "free" stuff to do. We actually found some free parking in Beverly Hills and walked up and down Rodeo Drive. That was such a neat area. Jeremy said that he felt like we should have dressed up. :-) We saw some amazing cars that Jeremy got really excited about, and I have to agree they did look really expensive! He wanted to take a picture of some them, and I told him not to. I'm sure people could tell that we definitely didn't belong. :-) After touring through Beverly Hills, I told him that I wanted to see the "Hollywood" sign and the star walk of fame. We finally found the sign, but it was so far away. I couldn't get a good picture. Then we found the star walk, but it cost $15 to park, and I told him that I would take a picture of a star from the car. I just couldn't bring myself to pay $15 to park. Yes, I'm a tight-wad. :-) Jeremy agreed that it was too much, and we headed to Santa Monica beach. It was a beautiful beach. The mountains "ran" into the beach. I think the mountains and the beach are two of God's most amazing creations, and I loved seeing them together at the same time.



The bad thing about this beach was discovered at the end of our walk. As we waited so patiently to rinse off our feet, we noticed that everyone was taking a very long time. When we got up there and looked at our feet, we noticed why. We had nasty tar all over our feet. I couldn't believe it. We could not get it off. So we just put our flip-flops back on and started walking back to the car. Jeremy said, "uh, my flip-flops have become-just flips." I was dying laughing. One because I was so tired and it was really true. When we got to the room, we had to peel our flip-flops off our feet. We ended up getting some stuff from a drug store, but it took several times to get it off. Lesson learned: I will never walk on a beach bare-footed in CA again.
Friday, we drove up to Malibu along the coast and into the mountains. It was very beautiful! Later that day, we went to the Griffith Observatory. I had never heard of that before, but guess what? It was free and so was the parking. :-) So that's why we went. It was really a neat place and had a great view of the city.



And as we were walking up the hill, I turned around, and guess what I saw? The Hollywood sign! So we got a few good pics of that.


The wind was blowing....

We had an interesting experience while at the Observatory, but I may save it for another post because this one is getting rather lengthy. All of this to be said, that it was a great time, but not what I consider a "real" vacation. A "real" vacation to me is: several days of staying up late, sleeping late and doing whatever we want without feeling rushed..... We really just had a day and a half to sight-see, and we felt rushed. However, it was better than nothing, and I'm truly thankful for the time that we had!