Bee line to LA

What is there between San Francisco and L.A. you ask, probably lots of stuff, that we did not stop to see. We were on a mission to get to the elusive Dockweiler Beach RV Park, where we were unable to make a reservation and no one could tell us if they thought there would in fact be a place for us to park. We took our chances, risking life and limb to get to the office before it closed at 9:30. White knuckled Josh drove our rig up the I-5 grapevine, all the while trying not to kill the brain dead L.A. drivers. Hasn't anyone told them what a turn signal is? Or when they see a turn signal, what idea it is actually trying to convey? We almost ran out of gas at 9:05 and had to stop. We literally had about four minutes to get off the highway, find diesel, pump it, and go. We maybe got about six gallons in before I screamed from the passenger seat "TIME'S UP!" We left the receipt for our sale fluttering in the breeze of our RV pealing back out into the night. Even after one (small) wrong turn we pulled up to the Park gate at 9:25, shaking, pale and heaving sighs of relief.

Our good friends Shiva and Nicole (remember the newly engaged from our Burning Man blog?) had gone to the park earlier in the day to try to secure a spot for us to no avail. To help us out, as we later found out, Shiva cleverly told us the park's office closed at 9:30 when in fact it closed at 10:00, tricky huh?

We spent the next few days in LA visiting with my good friend Beth and her husband Adam. Beth and Adam had moved from Holyoke to LA the previous spring and we hadn't seen them since. It was a wonderful visit. We hung out with her dog Oscar and her cat Lucy, ate really good food and caught up. We spent a night in their swanky new digs and headed out to dinner at Il Fornaio, where Adam is the manager. We visited the Container Store (I'm seriously considering registering there) and stocked up on, what else, containers. It was so nice to spend time with them and Josh and I both realized how much we have missed them, and their little dog too! As usual our visit was too short, Beth and Adam had to head (ironically enough) to the Northeast for a wedding.

After our visit with the Franzese's we headed to Nicole and Shiva's. The next few days were filled with surfing (Shiva and Josh), massages (Lindsay and Josh got AMAZING massages from Loni, more about that later), eating (what do you expect?), wedding planning (again, what do you expect?), dancing, laughing and more eating. Oh, and we waited FOREVER for UPS to figure out where and when to deliver a very important package containing a much anticipated part for the truck. UPS has yet to master efficiently and effectively delivering packages to the LA area.

Josh and Shiva, with Lindsay and the camera in tow, headed to the beach for an afternoon of surfing. Josh and I watched Shiva become one with the waves and the dolphins. Josh did really well after a year hiatus, and I soaked up the rays and tried to capture it all on the camera. We snacked and sunned then the boys headed back to the surf for another go. After about 45 minutes they hauled back out of the water with tired, rubbery arms and empty bellies. This is probably where more eating took place.


We headed north to Topenga Canyon to visit Loni, one of Josh's mom's best friends. She lives in an amazing community of houses that teeter on the steep canyon incline. The view from her porch is breath taking, especially if you are taking it all in from the bubbling hot water of the outdoor hot tub. On our first visit to the Canyon, Loni treated us to the most amazing cookies we have ever had. In the simplest terms the cookies were oatmeal raisin, but then they were Loni-fied! Some ingredients were doubled others were tweaked, the product we tasted could have been served for breakfast or dessert. We also visited Loni for our much anticipated massages. For months Josh and I had been griping back and forth about our various aches and pains and we kept talking about getting a massage. Finally, as we neared southern CA we decided to really treat ourselves and hold out for a Loni massage. For an hour and a half we were lulled and kneaded, rubbed and soothed by Loni's amazing hands. Josh took the first massage as I soaked in the hot tub and watched the sun play with the shadows and light on the canyon walls. Josh emerged, all mumbly and sleepy eyed. He sunk into the hot tub with a sigh and I was whisked into Loni's house. For an hour and a half she worked on me. I have had body work from many different therapists, and when someone works on me who knows dance and dancers bodies I always feel amazing after. Needless to say, Loni being a dancer, knows where certain bodies hold tension. I was a noodle when she was done with me.
With our massage after glow still aglow, we met up with Nicole, Shiva and Jorge (a good friend of Nicole and Shiva's) for sushi. Josh and I have a pretty serious reputation of going WAY OVERBOARD with ordering and eating sushi. Tonight we were hungry and our bodies were screaming out for good healthy food, as you might have expected, we went WAY OVERBOARD. But we weren't alone, everyone ate until we had to lean way back in our chairs.

I can't remember which night this next event occurred, but Josh and I got one of the coolest engagement gifts from Nicole and Shiva. They had a woman named Linda Solomon (www.solmoonrising.com), do our natal charts and record her reading them. I had never identified with the typical "Capricorn" readings and that was because I had never had my charts read. When your charts are read there are so many other components involved like where you were born, what time you were born, each of these and many more will paint an incredibly accurate picture of who you are. As Josh and I listened we kept opening our mouths in disbelief. How did this woman know ANY of this about me, we wondered. She was on the ball and not afraid to say unflattering things, not that she was offensive but when you hear certain things from a complete stranger you hear it differently than if you were told by a friend. We have listened to them many times since and we always seem to come away with a slightly deeper understanding of who we are and what we do.

Then there was Dance Church. At the end of the week Nicole, Josh and I headed off to do a little free dance. We walked into an huge room filled with moving bodies. Bodies of all shapes and sizes swayed, stomped, twirled and flew to a great dance beat. This was a place that you could do whatever you needed however you wanted to do it. Having not danced in quite a while I took a good long time stretching before I started to move. I stretched and watched. Some bodies moved with strict training and technique and some moved as thought they felt the earth quaking beneath them. All of the faces wore smiles, tears, sweat or elation. Some of their energy reached out to welcome everyone in, others felt like they demanded you pay attention to them. It was constantly changing and constantly evolving. As I began to move, I tried to watch and tried to get lost, it turned out I couldn't do them both at once. So I got lost for a while, in the beat and in my body. Sometimes I was pulled out and distracted by an odd sight but I tried to take what I saw and let it go again. Sadly, Shiva, our whirling dervish, was home in bed. Some of the sushi from the night before got it's revenge. We all danced healthy belly dances for Shiv.

It was sad to leave people we love, but that is a trend for our trip unfortunately. Imagine if we got to take everyone with us? We would have one PACKED RV. As LA disappeared into the yellow smog and traffic congestion we remembered all the fun we had while we were there. In fact we found that we did bring a little LA with us, a few weeks later while washing the RV we got to watch the last of the gray soot rinse off the white exterior.