Annual Midwest-South Tour

Me, my cousin Holly and my aunts Mio
and Patty from one of my trips back
to Indiana. I love this picture.

I'm heading back to Nashville. . .and Evansville. . .and Princeton. . . and Indianapolis. . .and back to Nashville this week. It's my vacation! Or at least one vacation that I'm using to take my annual pilgrimage back to the land where I came from. My cousin is getting married tomorrow and I want to be there--plus I get to see a few other cousins and an aunt that I haven't seen in a long time. BONUS!

What's tough about these trips is fitting it all in. I fly in and out of Nashville because it's typically cheaper and easier than Indianapolis. I rent a car and the real fun begins. It's a little more than two hours from Nashville to Henderson, KY/ Evansville to see my family there. Then it's about 35 more minutes north to see my dad and the wedding location in the Princeton area. After that, I get up on Sunday morning to roll up to Indy to see MY GIRLS!!! No trip to the Indiana vicinity is really complete until I see my girls and start some trouble.

From there I go back to Evansville to see more family that I neglected on my first pass and then to Nashville for a little more than 30 hours of trouble with my friends down there. Then back to work next Thursday unless I collapse from exhaustion.

A blur. A whirlwind. A marathon. Whatever you call it, it's quick, packed and a load of fun.

It's still hard not to refer to my annual trips as trips home, but Chef corrected me a few years back. I did the same thing when going just from Nashville to Indiana. "Home isn't somewhere else that you visit," he had said. "It's where you live. And you live here." And he's right. Home is where I live, and I live in Los Angeles.

I look forward to going back each year and catching up, but it obviously also brings up so many memories. I'm lucky because the good ones outnumber the bad by a landslide.

While I was raised in Indiana, I like to think that I actually grew up in Nashville. And when I left, I sobbed like a baby in the moving van all the way to Memphis. Completely inconsolable. Chef felt horrible and asked me why it was so hard. "Nothing bad ever happened to me there," I said. It was a possible exaggeration, because I don't live a completely charmed life, but on the whole, only great things happened in Nashville.It was home.

Of course, almost three years later (CRAZY!!) I can say the same thing about Los Angeles. Maybe my life is somewhat charmed? I dare say, a semi-charmed life?

But I digress. It's time to return to the land where highway driving means that miles and minutes are virtually interchangeable when estimating drive times.

Lock up yo husbands. Lock up yo wives. I'm heading your way TODAY.

It's Summer (Check Local Listings for Season in Your Area)

Okay, here's a weird thing about living in California: the use of July 4th as the first official day of summer. I think it's partly because school gets out later, but its clearly different than the rest of the country that uses Memorial Day as the beginning of summer.

Even if it's not officially summer, it felt like it last week when I took the Pacific Coast Highway home. I think it might become a habit. There's a traffic time sign at various points on my journey home. I think if the first one reads 50 minutes or more to make it to my first change of freeways, then I'm going to just take the PCH. Normally, it would take longer, but with the delays, it can cut come time off. And aside from that, it's just gorgeous.

One of the things I like about where I work is that its nestled in the mountains. I get to travel through the valleys and see some scenic areas. And when I take the PCH, the trip is all the more lovely. The cars were littered across the way with surfboards poking at the back. There were tons of surfers floating on their bobbing boards. And it was 6 p.m. There are days when I get so caught up that I forget that I work in California. I live near the coast. It is perpetually summer. And I need to bask in that more.

I Hate Motorcycles

When I first moved to LA and took that long trek to the DMV, I was forced to take another written test. I wondered at the time why there were so many questions on it about motorcycles. I mean, sure, you need to know about motorcycles, but they make up such a small portion of the vehicles on the road and were disproportionately represented on the test.

And then I started making my daily commute. And I began to realize just how much I truly, deeply, passionately hate motorcycles. Or rather the dicks that ride on motorcycles. Before I launch into this tirade, let me preface this by saying that I'm not talking about those who ride leisurely on Harley Davidsons on weekends. I'm talking about crotchrockets and the like, and the a-holes who ride them on a daily basis.

For those of you who don't live in a mild or warm climate and don't have to deal with an abundance of motorcyclists, this will probably be as new to you as it was to me. Here's the deal: Motorcycles here weave in between the cars in their lanes to get by. And by weaving, I don't mean they pass and get into a lane. I mean, they literally drive in the small space between you and another car. So if I opened my door, it would most certainly mean death to them.

Not only is this illegal, but it's rampant. And annoying. You're sitting there listening to your music in rush hour traffic, going 10 miles per hour and WHOOSH! A motorcycle rushes by and does the land equivalent to buzzing the tower. It's loud. It's dangerous. And it's aggrevating as hell. If I'm stuck going 10 miles per hour, you shouldn't be able to go 60 mph illegally.

And that's why I hate motorcycles.

Settling In

I haven't had the chance to write an update lately. It's been a crazy couple of days. Chef and I left Vegas at noon on Sunday thinking it would be a four and half hour trip. It was not. We knew it was going to be rough within the first couple of miles when traffic on I-15 was already backed up only about 5 miles outside of town.

The movers were scheduled to come in at 6 p.m. that night, so surely a 90 minute buffer would be plenty. But clearly it was not or I wouldn't be writing about it. At 6:30 that night, we were still almost two hours away from our new apartment AND Chef isn't supposed to drive at night. He has night blindness, so the prospect of driving into LA at night was not a good one. I had to stop to get gas and there happened to be a Best Western at the exit, so Chef and I decided that was a sign to stop.

The movers were nice enough to come the next morning. There was also a fatal traffic accident on the I-10 right before our exit, so there was a 90 minute delay the next morning getting to the apartment. Luckily, I had a Garmin to help steer us around it so we didn't get delayed the full 90 minutes. In the back of my mind, I heard every single person who told me that LA wasn't all that great because of the traffic (and it's expensive was the second most popular reason to stay away).

Anyway, the movers had it done in about an hour and we were unloading soon enough. Next, we went to Target to get some essentials and then back to the new place. I feel asleep pretty easily that night. One thing that Chef said he was going to have to get used to is the traffic noise. Our apartment is next to a busy street and there is never a time that it isn't busy. It was one of the trade-offs of the great place. The bitch of it was someone honking at 4 a.m. Who honks at 4 a.m.?

Aside from the honking, I have learned a few things: 1) this place would be much better if there were more left turn signals. 2) If you do get stuck turning left at a place with no turn signal, be sure to stick your car in the middle of the intersection and know that at least two cars must be able to turn left after the red light appears. I have a feeling that I will be a more aggressive driver the longer that I'm here.

This morning we woke up and wanted a long, hot shower. No dice. When we called maintenance, we found out that the entire complex had no hot water. Ugh. So, Chef and I unpacked more and made lists of things we needed. We also waited for the cable people to come. It wasn't until a little while ago when Chef configured it, that we had some other form of entertainment than our sparkling personalities. Now we have cable and internet. We have everything.

I Don't Mind Driving Any More

I had to head up to Rivergate this weekend to run an errand. Normally this type of trip (about 20 minutes away) would've taken a prayer and enough shaking to have my ovaries turned upside down. Now it's not so bad. In fact, with a radio, cruise control and smooth rides, I actually liked it. I am looking forward to warmer weather and rolling the windows down with music blaring as I roll.

I even got Chef to take a ride with me to Walgreen's. It's actually a good thing, because for the next couple of weeks to come, I'll be riding back and forth to Murfreesboro (aka The Boro). I'm covering the area until I get the position filled that covers the area. It's those things that I forgot about when I was longing for management experience. But in the end, I just think of how grateful I'll be when the position is filled again. And I think about how much better I understand things now. Not the strategy, but actual execution.

So, riding around in my new car has lost none of its appeal. I hope I still think so after 47 more payments.