Vacation time has come and gone and all I can say is: "Wow- what a trip!"
I left CA a couple of days after my birthday and drove to Tennessee. It took me two and a half days straight driving to arrive there, but it was OK. I spent the 4th of July in Tennessee with the family and friends. My older sister got married on the 4th and my parents celebrated their 58th anniversary on the 4th... along with it being my Mom's birthday on the 4th! That night, we went to Manchester to watch the fireworks, but that day we had a family reunion down in Normandy.
It was great spending time with family and I enjoyed taking photos while I was there... and taking photos on the way up there... and when I left there! More on that later!
As far as we know (and that's not much) there wasn't a family get together on the 4th for Mike's family. We took Michael and Melissa out to visit Emmett, but he wasn't feeling very well.
I spent five hours mowing our 3 front acres at the house. It was hot as all get out, but it was really not very bad spending that time on the lawn mower... sort of a decompression chamber for all the antics family members were up too. Could it be any worse?!
OK, so the return trip from TN was absolutely awesome! Mike's aunt, Bettie and her friend, Katherine drove back to CA with me. It took us 6 days to get here, but we stopped and did the tourist thing along the way. We visited the Cowboy Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City; went to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo; Palo Duro Canyon south of Amarillo; spent the night in a haunted hotel in Las Vegas... New Mexico; visited the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert in Arizona; spent three days/two nights at the Grand Canyon; and then made a run for Corona!
Once we reached CA, we did the typical tourist stuff here, too. We did a tour of "the Stars Homes" and saw the Hollywood sign; there was a movie premiere going on (G Force by Disney); and the beach. We planned on going to the San Diego Animal Park, but the weather didn't cooperate with us... it was in the triple digits here! We did manage to get the shopping in though!
Well, all for now.
