Nature boys

WEDNESDAY
- Head over to Mike's after trying to leave my house for a while, but there was a lot going on
- We do dinner at BJs
- Big appetizer platter with the avocado things were yummy
- BJs didn't advertise their happy hour on their website, which was sad, and we paid full price for beers
- Stop at Target and browse
- Buy a cartful of clearance stuff that included more than 12 bottles of wine for less than $3 a piece. We looked like alcoholics and the slow checkstand lady was talking about how we were her new friends with all that wine.
- I get a moisturizer cream to appease Mike since my skin is always so dry and flaky (eew)
- Watch SYTYCD
- Bed about 11

THURSDAY
- Up about 7
- Shower
- He has some work stuff to work on
- Hang around until 12:30 or so watching TV and playing on my iPad
- Take off to get a haircut
- Head home because my dad calls to say it looks like I got some sort of concert tickets in the mail, and indeed I had. They were for some drummer I had never heard of, and would have taken advantage of them
- Head back to Mike's about 5, which was fine for him since he had a dentist appointment at 4
- Talk about what we've been up to in the past 5 hours or so
- Dinner was a spinach pasta he made with some yummy bread
- Watch SYTYCD and NY Housewives
- Bed about 1

FRIDAY
- Up at 7
- Shower
- Play around on iPads/iPhones/try to rebuild my iPhoto library
- He suggests we go somewhere since his friends canceled on dinner this weekend, which we had known about and been planning on for 3 weeks
- He asks where to go
- He asks what's in Visalia
- He asked if I still wanted to go up there
- I said we'll go to Visalia and then on to Sequoia National Park
- He agreed and booked a hotel, then car
- Talk to my parents and tell them where we're going... of course mommy is concerned that it is so last minute, that it is so far away, the usual.
- Pack real quick
- His neighbors are outside and we chat with them and he introduces me
- She is a former teacher and he is a firefighter- I knew that much- but it was cool to chat with them. She is about to go back to work, but with the economy, she was worried. She gave me some good info about good school districts.
- Head to the airport for our car rental, a Kia Soul. We had a lot of soul this weekend in it. It was like an awakening
- Head up 57 to the 210 to the 5. Slow traffic on the 5. He talks about a house he went to see in Santa Clarita when he first moved to Cali
- Shake and rattle... the car made lots of noises, which prompted Mike to hit various places with his hand to stop that. It would be a nice economical car for some people..............
- Go to the outlets in Tulare. Stop at Skechers and see nothing, but Mike suggests the Vans store... he doesn't own a pair of Vans. Shoes were buy 1 get 1 half off... and they had my lovely green shoes. Mike said I could get the half off pair and we would each get 1. He vetoed my green shoes saying "not with me around," but I got some blue jean fabric shoes. Should be fun...
- Head on to the hotel in Visalia
- Go to the Brewbaker Brewery that we had read a lot about on the internet... the brews were um... fruity and grainy. The beer was no bueno. Mike got the sampler platter and I got their sequoia red. We first had to wait 20 minutes for a table, then when we got the table it was upstairs, which looked like an old fashioned country restaurant and not a bar, which took away from the ambience. Oh, and screaming kids everywhere. The food was so-so.
- We talked about funerals as my mom wondered why I wasn't going to attend one with her on Saturday. We talked about difficult funerals, how he would rather go to a viewing than a funeral because he thinks funerals are for close family, but I argued the opposite that it was for anyone acquainted with the family as most that I have been to have been that way. He talked about how long it had been since he was at one, he asked how my grandma's funeral was and I told him about that whole situation with my aunt in Nor Cal. He told me he wants to be cremated and wants to make up a will shortly just in case he were to die and he made me think about how I want to be buried... lol... it was a morbid conversation.
- Head to Wal-Mart for antacid since he thought beer was giving him heartburn and how he was thinking he would have to start giving that up
- Go to the movie theater... that's the thing to do on a Friday night in Visalia
- See BAD TEACHER... she was a bad teacher... many inaccuracies in that movie that teachers would definitely be fired for... I watched it with a critical eye as I felt that with our previous conversations I'd have to defend the teaching profession, so I was watching it from that view
- Head back to the hotel where we watch the godawful Letterman with Lady Gaga and snack on Chips Ahoy
- Then we fool around and it was a lot of fun tickling and more
- We fall asleep about 1:15

SATURDAY
- Up at 8:30
- Shower
- Gas up the car... small tank in it
- Head to Panera
- Panera was waaaaay out of the way... like 5 miles and the nav gave us a crazy route to get there
- Head to Sequoia and talk about the beautiful scenery and a teacher I used to have/my former boss who lived on the outskirts of the park
- Sequoia was a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG windy road and Mike was crazy with those turns. He told me to look at the yellow line as he drove and asked if I was doing ok
- Saw the worlds largest trees. See pic below

- Get lost on a path... well... not lost... just out of our way thanks to his supposed expertise in sign reading... now had we gone my way we would have been back at the car sooner as I'm an expert sign reader, but I got my exercise... a good mile walk
- Take lots of photos in the trees and Mike basically took over camera duties, which was fine
- Drove through the park and tried to stop at their lodges for a drink, but they all closed at 2 or 2:30, and it was 2:40... boo! Would have been nice to sip a beer or something there...
- Played in the snow at the 7,000 foot level. First he took pics of me playing and told me to make it look like I was throwing a snowball at him, and I couldn't resist, and had to throw one. I hit him in the leg pretty nicely. He threw one at me, but it didn't hit me, and he didn't throw it as hard. Hey... lol... I didn't know.

- Go out the other side of the park- the Fresno side
- Drive to Fresno
- Make a few comments about how those cows would look so good cooked, which I got hit for
- Stop at a Starbucks in Downtown Fresno, have a passoin tea, play on our iPads
- Look for hotels or something to do
- Paso Robles was 2 hours away
- Lots of bad, expensive hotels
- Go down the 99
- Look for food in Bakersfield and find a basque restaurant... google it... find out it is a cuisine of some Spanish/French people in the Pyrranes Mountains and they're very isolated. The food was family style it said
- Drive into big industrial area
- Food starts off pretty well with bread, cabbage soup, hot sauce. More food comes- salad with some sort of meat, tomatoes. Next course was our entree- I chose tri-tip and he got a fish. Fries, Baked beans, and green beans came with that. Dessert was almond fudge ice cream. TOOOOOO MUCH FOOD, but the first few courses were good. We want to try a basque restaurant here in the IE now.
- Leave restaurant at 9 and let Heather, the nav system, guide us home
- She leads us out the 58 to the 14 to the 138 to the 15 and then back into the IE... we got the scenic route
- Back at 12am
- Watch TV a little

SUNDAY
- I always wake up about 6 and then doze/fall back asleep... I did and Mike got up or made some real loud noise to wake me up and I flung myself out of bed/out of my sleep about 8:30
- He handles a few things he has to do while I shower
- Go to Jamba Juice for oatmeal and Starbucks for a passion tea
- Mike talks about all of the sugar in that and I reassure him that it is ok... oh... and it is artificial sugar... lol
- We drive up to Idyllwild just to see what there is to see... long way in and a lot of dry brush... definitely not the Yosemite of Southern California like their website says, so we pass through quickly. Touristy town as Mike termed it.
- We head down the 74 and into Hemet
- Stop at Chilis for a margarita and onion straws
- Mike says he wants to try to get to Palm Desert via the 74, so I direct him and tell him how to get there
- He tries to argue with me that I didn't tell him we have to drive back through Idyllwild, but I did, at least twice
- He said he wanted to take the 79 to get there and he didn't want to do the 74. I informed him you can't get there
- So we do the 37 mile trek to Palm Desert, and it was scenic. We stopped a couple times at lookout points to get pictures of the Palm Springs/Palm Desert valley... it was a nice triP

- End up at El Paseo and his favorite Banana Republic where we both do about $100 in damage each on winter clearance (SWEATERS!)
- Walk across the street to our favorite seafood place for another margarita, mussels, and crab cakes. It was sooooo delish!!! The margarita was a bit salty, which was hard to drink at first, but the food was good, as usual
- Head back to his place
- Watch our Sunday night favs like Housewives of NJ, Watch What Happens Live (poor Vicki!)
- Eat a cookie from the batch we got at Fresh & Easy the other day
- Bed about 10:30
- Watch Frasier until we fall asleep

MONDAY
- Up at 7:15
- The light was shining in my face a way that made me have to face the opposite way of Mike and he tried to run his hand through the light to create a shadow to get me to turn to see what mischief he was causing
- Shower
- He has some work to do and I play with my computer and the cat. Apply for yet another job.
- Stop at Starbucks as we prepare to take the car back to the airport
- Car to airport
- Listen to Rosie talk about the Building 7 conspiracy with the World Trade Center. Gonna check that out. Mike knew about it being that he's from that area and heard Rosie talk about it for years
- DRive around his neighborhood looking at the houses in the middle of nowhere, and the school in the middle of nowhere, literally
- Take off about 12:15 to reunite with the family and my mom isn't even home! She was the one who wanted to see me, but she's out lunching with the teachers